Warm-Up

Warming-up is an essential pre-requisite before training in Taekwondo. Warming-down after training is just as important.

Why Warm-Up?

When training in Taekwondo, all parts of the body experience a diverse range of motions. Therefore, it is important that we prepare the body by warming it up for action. Some reasons for warming-up are:

• To warm muscles, joints, tendons, etc. to ensure they are ready for sudden, powerful movements
• To increase body temperature since flexibility increases at higher body temperatures
• To gradually increase workload on the heart and lungs
• To maximize performance
• To prevent or reduce injuries

An appropriate warm-up pays special attention to body parts that to be used during the training session. A Taekwondo training session may focus on a different part of the body than the last session, so it is important that the warm-up be tailored to the upcoming session. For example, if the session is to focus on leg techniques, then the warm-up should emphasize leg stretches. However, this does not mean we should ignore the upper body.