Warm up your body for exercise, impromptu family activities, and exercise-oriented video games
Warmups for light to intermediate exercise
I collected a short list of some of the moves I do to warm up for video games. You can see my original easy warmups list shared on Reddit. These exercises have been helpful for my intermediate level of game play. They also suit activities that aren’t always considered exercise but can be vigorous enough to sweat.
Easy warmups for casual exercise
Try these as a warmup for exercise, or to keep active during TV commercials or waiting for a bus.
- Walking indoors including up and down stairs
- Arm circles, figure 8’s
- Shoulder circles
- High knee marching in place
- Knee circles (knees together)
- Hip circles (hands on hips)
- Gentle neck range of motion
- Overhead circles holding a cushion (my favourite!)
- Dancing to one or two songs (another favourite)
Which exercises did I forget?
What other exercises come to mind? Do you have any favourites? Share them below please!
If you’re on Reddit, say hello! I’m imaginationisforever!
About warmups and cooldowns
Warmups are intended to prevent injury, warm up, and wake up your muscles before intense exercise. For people who have old injuries (like I do from motorbiking), they are pretty much a frequent habit to avoid further injury.
Cool downs are stretches done after exercise, to prevent tense muscles later. It’s a time of gentler movement as muscles and body cool down. Even with stretches, you can feel delayed pain up to two days later. Weird, eh? Again, having the luxury of past injuries, I can vouch for the benefits you get from stretches after exercise. Give stretches a try after tough or even mild exercises.
Which stretches for a good cool down?
The library or YouTube can provide a selection of stretches to follow. I will post some soon myself in an upcoming blog post. Do the ones that are easy enough and feel a stretch rather than pain. There’s no need to hurt yourself or feel anxious. Take the time to find your favourite beginner stretches. The right ones are easy to perform – you should be able to perform them without losing your balance or feeling any odd sensations or pain.
About injuries
I’m a personal trainer, so the main experience I have with injuries is as a patient. I’m not a kinesiologist but I have frequently been treated by injury specialists like that. During my own injury adventures, I’ve heard unofficial stories of people (all ages) who’ve gotten injured while playing with grandchildren, playing catch, getting in and out of cars, sliding around on bus seats, and playing video games. Age and experience doesn’t make much difference! If you have injured or sensitive legs, arms, shoulders, ankles, neck, back, you name it, they can really drag down your day.
So if in doubt, do at least a minor warmup and gentle stretches after exercise. Even the kinds of exercise that don’t look like exercise. One example is washing your car by hand. It takes me 30 minutes at least – but really more like an hour. It’s repetitive motions, all different directions. Do you see how that might deserve a warmup? And stretches afterwards?
Final thoughts about my warmup and cooldown habits
The less I do for a warmup and the more awkward the game motions are, the more I strive to have a good cooldown session afterwards too. I follow Apple Fitness and yoga routines for that. Even just five minutes is totally awesome to reset my body for the next activity.
