If you live in a humid climate, you may find the higher temperatures from June to September especially oppressive. Consequently, many otherwise active people may find themselves inactive and just trying to bear the dog days of summer.

True, the summer months may be a little harder to find the motivation to get moving, but the hot weather is much more conducive to your muscles and joints mobility. That’s because the lower the ambient temperature, the lower your muscles ability is to contract. In addition to a proper diet, an adequate warmup can help you achieve optimal muscle contraction even in colder temps.

To understand how to be better active in frigid weather without hurting yourself, it’s best to understand how muscle contraction works. Muscle contraction is powered by the uptake of oxygen into the muscles, transported through the lungs into the rest of the body by the blood. But when it’s colder, oxygen is released from hemoglobin much slower because the oxygen is more tightly bound to the hemoglobin.

Just as hemoglobin is quickly released in warmer temperatures, the cold temps inhibit the rate. This slower release rate makes contraction more difficult. The result is stiffness in your muscles and ultimately slower reflex time. During colder months it is subsequently more important to warm up.

In addition to warming up your muscles before any type of exercise, professional deep tissue massaging improves circulation to the muscles to warm them up internally and to combat the dropping mercury outside. This allows the oxygen to more readily enter your muscles and can prevent serious injury.

If you do sustain an injury from exercise without proper warmup, then acupuncture can help relieve pain and improve Qi and blood flow to bring oxygen and nutrients to the muscles to speed up healing.

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