We perform a warm up to prepare our body for exercise. A warm up is; 'a method of preparing the body for exercise involving light exercise, stretching and practice of the skill related movement patterns involved in the sporting activity about to begin.'
             I will create and explain a warm up for a footballer warming up for football.
             A warm up should include the following stages:
              Firstly a phase of the warm up should concentrate on raising the heart rate.
              Secondly there should be some flexibility or stretching exercises.
              Finally practice of the skill related movement patterns involved in the sporting activity that's about to begin.
             A warm up for someone who is about to play a game of football would start by running the width of the pitch about six times.
             The running should include a couple of short sprints, side steps and flicking up of your heels. This is performed to raise the heart rate, increasing the speed of oxygen delivery to muscles and raising body temperature.
             Now muscle temperature is increased the athlete should perform some flexibility or stretching exercises. The athlete should mostly focus on the lower half of the body, concentrating on the gastrocnemous, hamstrings and quadriceps, then working the way up the body. The stretches should be held for about 9 to 10 seconds. Essential static stretches and some calisthenic or dynamic type activities are performed where the muscle is working over its full range. Press-ups or squat thrusts are good for this but in a warm up, lunges or side steps are usually performed over the width of the pitch.
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