Everyone knows that you should do a warmup before your workout, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to do. A lot of folks think that jumping on the treadmill for 5-10 minutes is a good warmup for lifting. Ideally a warmup should address the following things:
- Activate the muscles you will be using in your main lifts
- Address mobility restrictions
- Increase your core body temperature
- Rehearse movement patterns so your nervous system is ready to go
- Get your brain in the game
This shouldn’t take super long – I suggest folks keep their warmup to 5-10 minutes. Too long and you’ll skip it.
Movements to Activate Specific Muscles
Think about the muscles you’ll use in your main lift, then think about other movements that will help activate those muscles. For example, when deadlifting, you’re using a lot of glutes and hamstrings, plus some back and lats. For deadlifts, focus on warming up your glutes, hamstrings, back, and core. Here’s a sample warmup:
- Hip Thrusts: Add a resistance band to target your abductors and fully activate your glutes.
- Banded Straight-Arm Lat Pressdowns: Helps you mentally connect with your lats and feel their engagement. One of our clients was recently shocked to be able to actively engage her lats for the first time during this warmup.
- Band Rows: Preps the rest of your back muscles for the demands of the lift.
- Deadbugs: A core activation exercise to ensure stability during your lifts. Also helps prep your core for bracing during the deadlift.
For bench press, focus on warming up your chest, triceps, and stabilizers like the lats and back. Start with some light exercises to activate these muscles:
- Plate 90-90s: Use a light plate to warmup and engage your shoulders, and move through some rotation.
- Lateral Raises: Use light dumbbells to warm up your delts..
- Pushups and Bench Dips: These prep your chest and triceps to move through the bench press.
- Straight-arm lat pressdowns with a resistance band. This not only activates the lats but also helps you feel the engagement needed for a solid bench press setup. This helps you be prepared to lock in your lats on the bench press.
Mobility Warmups
Mobility focused warmups might include dynamic stretches, mobility drills, or band distracted stretching. Squats require significant mobility in the hips and ankles. Try these movements to prepare your joints:
- Hip 90-90s: A mobility drill to open up your hips and improve rotation.
- Leg Swings: A dynamic stretch to loosen up your hip flexors and hamstrings.
- Band-Distracted Ankle Stretches: Targets ankle mobility to ensure a full range of motion during squats.
These exercises help you move freely and comfortably under the bar.
Your warmup should prep you to move, not exhaust you. It shouldn’t take forever, and it doesn’t need to be perfect. It should address any particular mobility concerns you have, activate the muscles you need to use, get your nervous system ready to go, and get your mind focused on the work to come. If you need help having a good warmup routine, our coaches are here to help!
