Why it Pays to Warm Up when You Are Working Out

I have never been one to exercise a lot, certainly not one to go to the gym and work out, and although I know that they say you ought to do some gently exercises to warm up the muscles before you move on to more strenuous ones, I never saw the need to do this, and one evening in February I paid the price.

Having not been able to go out and walk a lot during the winter, my wife and I were planning to go for a walk down by the river one evening after work, since the weather was not wet and too cold, but when I came home from work, she didn't really feel up to it, and so I thought I would use the Wii Fit that she had bought us for Christmas instead.

I had only used the Wii Fit a couple of times before, and was looking forward to getting to know it better that evening, but dinner was ready when I came home (I have a good wife), and so I ended up sitting down to eat before working out, which is not the best thing that you can do.

Since time was short before our favorite television shows came on, and I had enjoyed trying out the jogging several days previous, as soon as I went through the initial body tests, I was raring to go, and to beat the time that I had achieved before.

I should add that I am slightly overweight (by today's standards) and my knees have never been great either. Although I love to walk, I have never really jogged, and find running more than about 100 yards difficult at the best of times. But this is the living room, not the great outdoors, so I thought I would have a go.

Since I was exercising indoors I was barefoot, which I guess is also not a good thing, and so off I set, jogging on the spot in the middle of the living room, while my wife tried to keep herself from laughing at the sight - I don't exactly look pretty when I jog on the spot.

I was desperately trying to keep up with the "Mii" companion on the screen, but after a minute my left ankle started to cramp, but I kept going, determined to do my very best.

Well the pain got worse and worse, and the last 30 seconds as I raced downhill to the finish line had me almost hobbling in pain. You would have thought by looking at me that I was running the last hundred yards of a marathon, not a one mile jog around a virtual park and doing this on the spot.

When I finished, I was not only puffed, my ankle was also very sore and stiff. It hurt the rest of that evening, kept me awake that night, and the next morning I could hardly walk.

For the next two weeks at least my ankle reminded me constantly that I had abused it, and the worst thing was telling people how I actually did this - jogging on the spot in the living room.

Next time I know better, and that I need to warm up before doing this. I also probably ought to wear running shoes for support as well.

Sources:

Wii Are Not Feeling So Fit This Morning