Romanian or stiff-leg deadlifts with a band are excellent for "grooving" the hip hinge pattern and waking up your glutes and hamstrings before deadlifting.
Use this exercise as part of a warm-up for 2-4 sets of 10-20 reps. Or use it as a high-rep finisher. Time how long it takes you to complete 100 reps and then try to beat your time in the next workout.
Endurance work makes you soft and weak. Steady state cardio, as a fat loss tool, should be buried. Metabolic interval training or HIIT is far superior.