Lifting is as simple as an exercise: you pick the thing up and put it down. But that doesn’t mean you will go to the gym and just pick it up. A proper warm up can help you be prepared for your big lift. So let’s talk about how to build your best lifting routine.
But first let’s talk about expectations. People often talk about warm up exercises as if they magically prevent injury, or that skipping one injury would lead to another disaster. It is not necessarily true. They’re also not really going to do much for your chances of (or not) experiencing pain after your workout, either. If you’re comfortable walking straight from the front door to the squat rack, there’s no need to add any warm-up.
Why even one? Think of the warm up in preparation for the lift. Your muscles work better when they’re warm (like literally at a higher temperature). You also want to be ready to move around in any way the elevator requires. For example, if your ankles are stiff, they can bend more while squatting if you put them in motion.
You should choose the components of your warm up based on the help you need to prepare for your lift. So let’s discuss some of the options and when you could use them.
Cardio will warm you up and get you ready for work
Before lifting, many people like to hop on the treadmill, rowers, or maybe do a few jumping jacks for 5-10 minutes. A cardio warm-up like one of these offers several benefits:
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- It physically warms up your muscles
- It gets at least some of your muscles and joints moving
- It enables your energy systems to add extra strength to your muscles
Remember how when you run The first mile (or the first 10 minutes or so) feels sluggish? That’s because your body powers up these energy systems so you can use them more efficiently during the rest of the workout. If you need short rest periods while lifting – like a Crossfit-style WOD – this cardio warm-up is essential to keep the rest of the workout from sucking.
Cardio isn’t strictly necessary if all you want to do is exercise at your own pace, but the warmth and exercise can still help you feel better and act as a mental and physical introduction to the work you’re doing.
Mobility work makes you ready to move
We’re not (just) talking about stretching here. If you want to improve your flexibility through long, deep static stretches, it is best to save this after your workout. When you get ready to lift, you may want to do some mobility work instead.
Mobility in this context means being able to move in the way that your training requires. When you’re doing squats and your calves and ankles tend to be stiff and that stiffness is preventing you from getting crouch as low as you wantThen you should spend some time working your squats on your ankle mobility. (We have some concrete suggestions here.)
Apply the same principle to any exercise you plan. If you have trouble arching your back while doing the bench press, do some upper back mobility first (I like to lie on my back on a foam roller). If you want to take snapshots or squats, you may want to do some shoulder exercises, such as: the one where you put a pole over your head and behind your back with your arms straight. If you want to do power clean or front squats, you might want to put out your lats.
This phase is where Foam rollers and dynamic stretching can occur. Foam rolling can help loosen up a muscle, like a small massage. And dynamic stretches are warm-up movements that guide your joints through whatever range of motion you later ask them to do. Google “mobility work for ___” and you will get lots of ideas.
Ultimately, what you use in this section of the warm up should be what will best help you succeed later in the workout. Experiment with adding or removing things.
Activation exercises prepare your muscles
Sometimes it’s nice to do an exercise that uses all of the muscles that you use in the main workout, but with lighter weights or even via a completely different movement. For example, banded glute bridges can help you prepare for a workout that focuses on squats or hip bumps.
To be very clear, you don’t have to “activate” the muscles to use them later Loot tape suppliers I will try to convince you that this is an essential step. These exercises just give your muscles a preview of what they’re going to do in the main event and can help you go through your main lift warm-up sets (see below) a little faster.
Technical exercises will help you perfect your skills
Whenever you are performing a lift that requires precise technique, practice exercises that will help with that particular lift. Before I take snapshots, for example, I like to do exercises with only the bar: maybe a few hanging rags or squats over my head or great snapshots. Again, select exercises for this stage based on the technique you need to practice.
Finally: your warm-up begins
Now we’re actually doing the lift! Let’s say you are going to squat at 200 pounds today. Just because you’ve warmed up doesn’t mean you should load 200 pounds on the bar and get started.
Everything above was optional. The warm-up sets that most athletes and coaches would agree to are mandatory. You can actually replace most of the above steps (for a lot of people, for a lot of elevators) because doing enough warm-up sets will warm your body, move you through the required movements, activate your muscles, and practice the elevator technique, that you are about to do.
Start with that a set with the same number of repetitions They’ll do for your work sets or more. So if you want to do 5 reps at 200 pounds, start with a set of 5 to 10 reps with just one bar.
Then add some weight and then add a little more and then another until you reach the target weight for your first work set of the day. The exact weight increments are not important as long as you have several stops on the way to the work set for the day. So, for our 200 pound example, I could do 95 pounds, then 135, then 155, then 185, and then finally start working with 200. And I’d probably do 5 reps for each, except that on the lighter weights I might rather do more, like 10.
Put everything together
I like to think about warming up for lifting by combining my warm up sets (as described in the section above) and anything I need that my warm up sets don’t cover enough.
So, if you feel like you need more mobility work than warm-up kits alone can give you, you can walk to the gym, run for five minutes on the treadmill to warm up your legs, and then do foam rolls and ankle stretches before you start squatting . They didn’t do any technique or activation work, but that’s fine if you don’t feel like you need to.
Or if your mobility is okay but you’re planning a circuit-style workout and hate being out of breath between lifts, you can benefit from a more thorough cardio warm-up to make sure you’re ready for the fast Pace of training.
It’s okay if your warm-up for each workout is different or changes over time. Older athletes often find they need more warm-up time than they did when they were younger, and we all may need more warm-up time in cold weather than in hot weather. Find out what makes sense for you and build your warm up accordingly.
