Does Warming Up Reduce Your Risk of Injury in Sport?

Warm-ups are a staple regardless of the sport, performed unquestioningly at the start of every session. When you tune in to watch the Olympics, you see every single athlete performing their warm-up routine before go-time.

Even when elite athletes come with their own set of considerations, athletes of all levels perform warm-ups to raise body temperature, increase blood flow to your muscles and, importantly, reduce our risk of injury.

But have we been overestimating the importance and efficacy of warming up all this time?

Why warm up before sport?

The purpose of warming up is to raise your body and muscle temperature, dilate blood vessels to increase blood flow, increase your range of motion, and mentally prepare for the task at hand.

By doing so, your body is primed for exercise and prepares you to perform.

Additionally, some believe warming up is an important part of reducing risk of injury.

This last point, according to a 2006 systematic review published in the Journal of science and medicine in sport “is based on limited clinical evidence” – more on this below.

What do people mean by warm-up?

Ultimately, what exactly is a warm-up?

Warm-ups generally consist of “light physical activity” and “some stretching” appropriate to the activity you’re about to perform. Nowadays, it is generally accepted that static stretching before exercise is, if not actively damaging then essentially useless, but dynamic stretching is still an integral part of athletes’ warm-ups.

Light physical activity can be anything from a walk, a light jog, easy rowing, or rope skipping. It takes some time to dilate your blood vessels and raise your core body temperature – needed if you want to perform an intense activity – so warming up helps get you there sooner.

The best warm-up will start slow and increase intensity, as well as include sport-specific movements at a slow pace, which is increased towards the end.

Is warming up helpful?

In terms of warm-ups preventing injuries in the upper body, a 2015 systematic review found that there is a big gap in literature addressing the topic. The authors did find, however, that certain warm-ups are more effective than others, with:

• high-load dynamic warm-ups enhancing power and strength performance, relevant in sports such as Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, or track and field events.
• short-duration static stretching warm-up having no effect on power outcomes
• passive heating/cooling being a largely ineffective warm-up mode

Back to the findings of the 2006 systematic review on the efficacy of warming up for injury prevention. Of the five studies that had sufficient quality data on the effects of warming up to prevent injuries:

• Three found that warming up significantly reduces risk of injury
• Two found that warming up had no effect on the number of injuries sustained

The finding is supported by a robust 2021 summary of systematic reviews on sports injury prevention strategies (free to read online). The authors found that “several overlapping systematic reviews have found no or minimal evidence regarding the effectiveness of stretching, warm-up exercises, or prevention video for injury prevention.”

To rest the case for stretching, a 2014 meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials of injury prevention methods found that stretching seemed not to be an effective method to prevent injuries.

With this in mind, warm-ups are essential if your activity requires max efforts, they just don’t have to be as long as many believe.

How long does this take to warm-up? Anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, with a 2020 study finding that a five-minute warm-up had no difference in performance compared to a 10-minute warm up (or no warm-up at all) before a 20-minute cycling time trial.

Turns out a lot of people warm up too intensely, Allen Lim, Ph.D., founder of Skratch Labs, a company that helps train professional cyclists, told Outside Online in 2013. He says it only takes a few minutes to harness the benefits of warming up, far less than what most people do.

A too-long warm up is not only unnecessary but might even hurt performance, as you induce muscle fatigue to your muscles the longer you warm up.

The upshot: consider what activity you’re warming up for. If it will require you to perform to max effort from without small increases, the more throughout you want to be. If you’re an endurance athlete, research suggests that a traditionally long warm-up isn’t doing much for you in terms of performance. 

Additionally, you need to think about warm-ups as situation specific as well as sport specific. They become more important the colder the temperature gets, for example.

The takeaway

Walking up to a barbell loaded with your 1RM without warming up is clearly a silly idea and one sure-fire way to get injured. However, warming up for too long or doing the “wrong” exercises can lead to overheating, increase muscle fatigue, waste time, and decreased performance.

While there is some evidence that warm-up routines can reduce the risk of injury, it is not robust. It’s also hard to make any general conclusions as the efficacy and effects of warm-ups are incredibly sport specific and, even within the same sport, vary from situation to situation.

Additionally, we haven’t mentioned the positive psychological effects a warm-up can have on athletes at all during this article.

You should constantly be evaluating your pre-sporting routines to see what works best for you.