It’s essential to warm up properly before exercising, or else you risk injury or subpar performance. But many people put little effort into this crucial part of exercising because it’s relatively boring.

Some folks will even skip it altogether.

But we’re here to show that it doesn’t have to be boring to perform an effective warm-up session; in fact, it can be downright fun.

The Benefits of Warming Up Properly

We all know what can happen if we don’t warm up properly before working out, but what are some of the benefits of a great warm up routine?

• Better Flexibility
• Performance Improvement
• Increased Range of Motion
• Decreased Chance of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)
• Better Blood Flow

Here’s a list of our eight favorite fun and easy warm-up exercises for you to try to keep you enjoying your workouts and improving your performance.

1 – Dynamic Stretch Warm-Up

A dynamic warm-up routine is far superior to a static stretch. Static stretching can add an additional risk of injury and be detrimental to your performance. Dynamic stretches are movements that come more naturally to our bodies and are performed using only your bodyweight. The fluidity of the motion allows your body to gently warm up rather than holding a continuous stretch that can fatigue muscles before you’ve even started.

2 – Skipping

Skipping, or jump rope, is not only an excellent way of warming up before you work out, but it’s also really fun and a great cardio workout if you jump rope for extended periods. The constant motion is a surefire way of getting your heart rate elevated, your blood pumping, and your muscles warm.

3 – Heavy Bag Work

Throwing a few punches at a heavy bag is an ideal follow-up to some dynamic stretching. Start with a few simple jabs, crosses, and hooks and work your way up to some combinations. Don’t go too crazy, though; you’re supposed to be warming up, not knocking out Jake Paul. However much you might want to.

4 – Resistance Band Warm-Up

Warming up with some light resistance bands (like these from Victorem) is an excellent way to warm up your muscles for a good workout in the gym. Performing overhead presses, crab walks, rows, band pull aparts, and squats with resistance bands will prime your muscle for heavier barbell work.

5 – Yoga

Yoga isn’t only a fantastic way of warming up before a workout; it’s a superb way of keeping your muscles, tendons, and joints healthy for many years to come. Make no mistake, though, yoga is challenging, and you’ll need a good teacher to teach you the basics.

6 – Medicine Ball Warm-Up

Medicine balls are an amazing tool not just for accessory exercises but for warming up too. You can get creative with the way you warm up with a medicine ball, and they’re brilliant for warming up with your gym buddy. Just don’t go too heavy with your selection of balls.

7 – Stationary Bike

While the stationary bike in and of itself might not be the most exciting way to warm up for you (though some people love it), you can use the static nature of the machine to busy your mind while you warm up your body. Catch up on your favorite Netflix series, read a book, answer those emails you’ve been putting off for the last few days. The options are endless.

8 – Jumping Jacks

You can’t go wrong with jumping jacks as part of your warm-up. They’re super easy, everyone knows how to do them, they don’t require any equipment, and doing jumping jacks to music is a fun way of getting your body moving and your heart rate up. Though don’t try to keep the rhythm to thrash metal, or you may pass out.

9 – Animal Crawls and Walks

There are a surprising number of warm-up exercises that are named after animals. Many of these routines get their names as they mimic the movements of the creatures they’re named after the crab walk, the frog jump, the bear crawl. There’s a whole host of different animal exercises you can use to warm up your body.

You can choose to incorporate one or two of these different exercises into your warm-up routine or mix and match them to create a whole new warm-up altogether. Keeping your warm-up routines interesting so that you stick to them is the most important thing to keep your body primed for the best workouts possible.

After a gap of 1 year, the NCAA tournament is about to start. Since the tournament is going to start; The March Madness Bracket is also set to come back. It suffered a setback last year for the pandemic. There are millions of people around the world who are waiting to participate in this outstanding program which can come with plenty of money as a prize if their luck favors it. People, who are participating in this kind of lottery program, are not only basketball enthusiasts but a number of mathematicians who have a length of period of experience in prediction, have joined.

According to many, it is not as easy as it seems to predict the right outcome from the tournament. The chance to get your predictions correct is almost one in billions of times. So, even one of the professional mathematicians has ever been able to predict the right March Madness bracket but still, there is a chance to get the best result from the prediction and in this way, it will be a very close outcome that can satisfy the participants. This article will let you know about the March Madness Bracket which is known as one of the biggest betting events of basketball history.

Why Do People Wait Eagerly to Participate in the March Madness Bracket?

Needless to mention, there are millions of basketball enthusiasts eagerly waiting to participate in the March Madness Bracket. This event is high in popularity around the world. This particular term is being coined by Illinois high school officer Henry Porter. However, this was particularly popular in the year 1982 basketball tournament when the broadcaster used this officially on the official channels.

How March Madness Bracket Is Being Played Out?

In the event of the March Madness Bracket, there are almost 68 basketball teams that get the chance to compete against each other along with the single-elimination tournament in seven rounds and with 63 matches. NCAA Madness Bracket allows anyone who can try to predict the match results. If the people who have predicted all these matches and their results rightly, they will win big money.

The Chance of Winning the March Madness Bracket

March Madness Bracket is getting organized every year and this ritual is from 1939. At present, there is not a single person even able to predict the outcome rightly and however, some participants have managed to predict the correct result for a few matches but still, they are far from the reality.

People Participate in this Event as a Lottery

People who are mainly participating in different types of lottery programs have already tried their luck to win the right bracket, however; they fail to predict the right outcome. This is not about winning the Lotto jackpot. According to estimation, people get a chance of 1 in 33 million to win the lottery. Though it looks very small probability in the case of the March Madness bracket, this chance also gets thinner.  According to experts, the odds of any person being hit by an asteroid from space are 1 in 1.6 million but it is more than 75,000 likelier than winning the perfect bracket.

According to the rule of that event, people who want to win the entire prize money, have to predict 32 matches’ results in the first round, 16 matches in the 2^nd round, and the last 8 matches in the third round. After that, they have to also predict the right 4 matches in the Elite Eight round, 2 matches in the final four and last the championship match. So, according to a calculation, the probability of the right predicting of all these matches is 1 in 9 quintillions. Due to this thinnest probability, there are millions of people every year eagerly waiting to participate in this event.

Has Anyone of the Participants Succeeded?

Though, none of the participants have yet to predict a hundred percent correctly most of the participants have come close. Few people also predict the right half of the entire match. In the year 2019, Gregg Nigl had successfully predicted 49 out of 64 matches. This result was very close but he lost to correctly predict Sweet Sixteen rounds which are known as the 3^rd round of the tournament. It is quite hard to predict and still, it is yet to witness the winner.

Since the turn of the millennium, the Los Angeles Lakers were the most successful NBA team of the inaugural decade, having won five championships. Then, nearly a decade went by and it looked like the LA Lakers would go more than 10 years without a championship. However, bettors at the top 10 casino sites were soon rewarded for backing the Lakers to come through in an emotionally charged 2019-2020 season. But first, let’s examine the lean years.

Kobe Bryant’s 2013 Contract

According to Ryen Russillo of Fan Duel, the Lakers’ woes in the next decade became apparent in 2013 with the re-signing of the late Kobe Bryant (R.I.P.) on a long contract in November of that season. Having turned 35, this was to mark a spell of two injury-plagued seasons for Bryant. An Achilles
Injury has already proven troublesome to shake off by the time Bryant tore the rotator in his right shoulder during the 2014-15 season.

In 2015-16, Bryan embarked on his 20th and final season with the Lakers. Historically, this was a record for Bryant, who surpassed John Stockton on 19 seasons with the same NBA team. While playing below the peaks of his career, Bryant continued to work hard and was humble in requesting that opponents didn’t honor his achievement on the court. Having broken a 10-game losing streak, Bryant delivered one last time with a spectacular 60-point showing against the Utah Jazz.

Finding the Top 10 Online Casinos

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As one of the leading online casino portals in the marketplace, Top 10 has a review process that doesn’t just focus on the headline bonuses and promotions. Top 10 goes deeper to consult the range of software providers and the compatibility of popular devices. Furthermore, the portal also evaluated the on-security and whether payments can be processed safely and efficiently. Also, the portal checks out every casino site to ensure that adequate support is provided to players.

Leadership Fumbles

While paying a high salary for the aging and injured Bryant, the Lakers failed to entice younger stars in free agency. Three of the most notable failures were LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Bosh. Russillo also mentions that the Lakers couldn’t entice Kyle Lowry or Pau Gasol. With Bryant retiring in 2016, the Lakers had given up half a decade without rebuilding the team in a meaningful way.

Controlling owner of the Lakers Jeanie Buss wasn’t pleased by the wave of denials and described any player who didn’t want to play with Bryant, “as probably a loser, and I’m glad that they wouldn’t come to the team”. So, instead of attracting the aforementioned free agents, Buss and the Lakers settled for acquiring the likes of Carlos Boozer, Wesley Johnson, Jeremy Lin, and Ed Davis. As NBA Insiders will know, the strategy didn’t work.

What also didn’t work is the leadership structure, with Russillo citing a fundamental flaw in hiring and firing four separate coaches since 2013. Among those to try and fail at the Lakers were Mike Brown, Mike D’Antoni, Byron Scott, and Luke Walton. Plus, there were issues when Magic Johnson joined as team president wasn’t given the authority to fire Walton, with general manager Rob Pelinka blocking the move.

The King James Reign

After previously failing to entice LeBron James, the Lakers finally got their man when the Cleveland native opted to leave the Cavaliers before the 2018-19 season. However, one man does not a team make. Although LeBron arrived in LA, the Lakers failed to surround him with an appropriate cast of talent.

Despite the gulf in talent, LeBron dragged the Lakers into playoff contention. Unfortunately for LeBron, the dream became a nightmare when he incurred a groin injury and missed 17 games. Unsurprisingly, the team failed to qualify without him. Missing the playoffs for the first time since 2005 was a wake-up call for Lebron. For the Lakers, the playoffs had eluded the team since 2013.

Walton was forced to carry the can for the 2018-19 failure and in stepped Frank Vogel, formerly of the Indiana Pacers and Orlando Magic, respectively, as head coach. The New Jersey native, however, wasn’t the first choice with the Lakers having been spurned by Monty Williams and Ty Lue – the latter wasn’t satisfied with the contract terms that were offered.

Lakers Win 17th Banner

Amid all of the chaos, the Lakers had traded three first-round draft picks along with players Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram, and Lonzo Ball to secure the rights of Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans. With the roster shaken up, LeBron shifted to point guard and adapted his style for the 2019-20 season. After improving his defensive efforts and providing leadership to the team, James helped the Lakers to open the season with a 17-2 record.

With COVID-19 bringing a suspension of the 2019-20 schedule, the NBA finally resolved the issue by inviting 22 teams to form the NBA Bubble. This required coaches and players from each of the 22 teams to form bubbles that wouldn’t be broken until the playoffs were resolved. Ultimately, players and coaches could only see each other and not family or friends.

After posting a 52-19 record by the conclusion of the regular season, the Lakers finally entered the Lakers after not participating since 2013. Simultaneously, the Lakers were declared the top seed, a feat which hadn’t been achieved since 2010. All signs were pointing towards a dominant run and the Lakers didn’t disappoint.

The Lakers began with a 4-1 series win over the Portland Trail Blazers, which was followed by further 4-1 series victories against the Houston Rockets and the Denver Nuggets. The Lakers then finished the job by clinching their 17th and record-equaling championship to move the team level with the Boston Celtics. In a 4-2 series win, King James won his fourth Finals MVP accolade to complement his four Championship wins.