The purpose of a warm-up is to prepare your body for work, perform better, and reduce the risk of injury. A good warm-up is simple and time efficient. This protocol includes seven easy exercises that prime your body without wasting your time. Do these before you get under the iron.
Stretching the hip flexors (the front or anterior hips) will help you move better in general. It'll also remove the "extensor block" which happens when tight hip flexors act as a brake for hip extension.
This stretch makes it easier to activate and train the glutes as well. It'll help you increase mind-muscle connection with your glutes, especially if you've been sitting for a long time before your workout.
You'll see in the photo that my hips are pushed forward. That's intentional. Some recommend staying completely vertical with the spine while bracing the abs and glutes in this position. That's fine. However, I prefer a deeper stretch (more in the direction of doing front splits). Do what feels best.
The glute bridge is one of the most effective exercises to activate the glutes. It's also one of the simplest. Glute activation will always increase your performance potential in the squat, deadlift, and all lower body training, including sprints and jumps. It'll also increase your ability to stabilize your pelvis and lower spine during lower body exercises, which can prevent low back pain and injury.
The one-legged version will activate the anti-rotation capacity of your core muscles. This will also increase hip stability in functional movements.
Use the arms-over-head position to get a slight mobilization effect for the thoracic spine and chest muscles. Everything counts!
The side lying hip abduction will activate the gluteus medius, which is a key muscle for hip and knee stability. It'll help to stabilize the knees, pelvis, and low back during squats, and can improve your balance in single-leg exercises.
It can prevent knee pain and knee injuries related to strength training, but also running, jumping and cutting. If your knees are caving in during all kinds of movements, you need to do a little more to train the hip, especially the gluteus medius.
Mobilizing the thoracic spine in extension and rotation will instantly increase your upper body mobility. It'll help you with all pressing and pulling exercises.
The increased mobility will make it easier for you to position your shoulder blades for optimal upper-body power generation. Your pressing, throws, and strikes will benefit. Better positioning of the shoulders improves stability, which means better performance and injury prevention.
The floor slide will dynamically stretch the pecs and the front of your shoulders. It'll activate the often dormant upper back and shoulder-stabilizing muscles. You need to wake these up if you're training upper body! It'll also train you to depress and retract the shoulder blades. This position has huge carryover to exercises like rows and pulldowns, but also the bench press and squat setup.
This will activate the serratus anterior, a very important shoulder/upper body stabilizer. It'll also directly make the chest, delts, and triceps ready to perform, both vertically (shoulder press), and horizontally (bench press). It'll even activate the anterior core (keep the abs engaged). Done right, you'll eliminate the need for front planks during your warm-up.
The squat to stand provides a great stretch and dynamic warm-up for the whole posterior chain, especially the hamstrings. It opens up the groin/adductors and prepares you for the bottom position of a squat. The exercise can also be used as a learning tool for squats.
By adding rotation into the mix (optional), you get a great mobilizing effect of the whole spine as well.
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