One of the most neglected parts of most people’s exercise routine is a proper warm up prior to beginning regular exercise. A good warm up will help you to obtain the most from your workout but even more important a good warm up is essential to preventing injuries that will eventually result from not properly warming up your body before exercising. Injuries are the absolute worst outcome from exercising because when they occur they usually cause most people to completely stop exercising. Think of your muscles as rubber bands and just like a rubber band they have a lot more elasticity when they are warm. And just like a rubber band your muscles will also have a much greater likelihood of breaking if used when they are cold and more brittle. Performing a good warm up is actually very simple and does not require any special equipment. The first thing you want to do is to engage in some very light aerobic exercise like jogging in place or riding a stationary bike. The goal here is to increase your activity just enough to break a sweat which means your body is warm enough to be able to start stretching your muscles. You should then engage in a good stretching routine that will properly stretch and warm up your entire body. An old strength coach used to like to say that working out without properly warming up is like playing Russian roulette with a gun because it is only a matter of time before you shoot yourself with an injury that will counteract everything you are trying to accomplish by exercising in the first place.