If you are indulging in intense workouts such as cardios or heavy lifting of weights, you need to prepare the body. Exercising with warm ups before you undertake the main workouts helps bring the body in form to be able to endure to the strenuous workouts. In winter, the muscles are colder and stiffer and it may take more time for you to warm up the muscles. In these times of winter, you may want to continue with the warm up exercises you do but then increase the reps so that you take a little longer on the warm ups.
Also try to avoid static stretching when you do warm ups. This is because the muscles are not fully warmed up something that could lead to hurting of the tissues. You might want to leave the stretches for the cool downs when you are relaxing the body. Moreover, you should not forget hydrating the body when you are warming up to give it more energy and kick start the mood for workouts.
The head and shoulder rolls are an amazing way of warming up the body before you begin intense workouts. With these rolls, you assume a start position and put the hands on your hips. While keeping the back straight, you roll the shoulders forward, upward, and backward to make one shoulder roll. For the head roll, you rotate the head in a clockwise direction fully and gently and then repeat the anti clockwise rotation.
On the other hand, for the head rolls, you may just turn the head side to side instead of rotating. When doing the rolls, you should ensure each roll last for one full breath both in inhalation and exhalation. You can repeat the head and shoulder roll for about 15 times. The shoulder rolls help in releasing the tension that is created on your shoulders because of assuming sitting positions for too long or being in bad posture.
Another warm up exercise that you can do is upper body twist. In this exercise, you assume the start position, extend the feet and shoulder width apart, and then bend the arms in front of you while the hands remain in loose fists. Then turn the body, the hips, as well as the torso to the right while pausing for a couple of seconds before you return to the centre. Turn to the left side, twist and pause, and then return to the centre.
When you do the moves, inhale on twisting and exhale on returning to centre. You can repeat the moves by making about 16 repeats meaning eight moves on each side. By twisting, it helps give the spine a good stretch and it makes the spinal muscles and joints more flexible. Hip circles can also help loosen up the hips as well as the pelvic muscles as these parts do not get much exercise in a sedentary lifestyle.