Your Warm-up Should Not Only Be for Muscles
Raising is as easy as exercising: you raise the thing and lower it. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to the gym and just pick up a thing. A proper warm-up can help you prepare for the big exercise, so let’s talk about how to build the best warm-up regimen.
But first, let’s talk about expectations. People often talk about a warm-up as if it would magically prevent injury or that skipping it would lead to another disaster. This is not necessarily true. Plus, they won’t greatly affect your chances of suffering (or not getting sick) after exercise. If you feel comfortable walking straight from the front door to the squat rack, you don’t need to add a warm-up.
Why one at all? Well, think of a warm-up as preparation for a weight-lifting job. Your muscles will work best when they are warm (for example, literally at a higher temperature). You must also be prepared to move in any way that the lift requires. For example, if your ankles are stiff, moving them will help them flex more during squats.
You should choose the components of the warm-up depending on the kind of help you need to get ready for the exercise. So let’s discuss some of the options and when you can use them.
Cardio keeps you warm and ready to go
Before going up, many people like to jump on a treadmill or row for 5-10 minutes, or perhaps do a few jumps. A cardio workout like one of these has several benefits:
- Physically warms up muscles
- It makes at least some of your muscles and joints move.
- This makes your energy systems work, providing extra power for your muscles.
Remember when you run the first mile (or the first 10 minutes or so) it seems sluggish? This is because your body activates these energy systems so you can use them more efficiently during the rest of your workout. If your climb will involve short rest periods – such as a CrossFit style workout – this cardio warm-up is essential so that the rest of your workout doesn’t suck.
If you’re just going to lift weights at your own pace, cardio isn’t important, but warmth and movement can help you feel better and provide a psychological and physical introduction to the work you’re about to do.
Working with mobility prepares you for the move
We’re not (just) talking about stretching here. If you want to work on your flexibility by doing long, deep static stretches, it’s best to postpone this until after your workout. When you’re preparing to climb, you can work with mobility instead.
In this context, mobility means the ability to move as required by training . If you are going to do a few squats and your calves and ankles tend to be stiff and that stiffness prevents you from sinking into the squat as deeply as you would like , then you should spend some time before doing the squat working on your ankle mobility. … (We have some specific suggestions here .)
Apply the same principle to any exercise you plan. If you find it difficult to arch your back on the bench press, do some upper back mobility workout first (I like lying on my back on a foam roller). If you are going to do leaps or squats with a barbell over his head, you can do some exercises for the shoulders, for example, where you spend the bar over his head and his hands behind his back straight . If you’re going to do power cleansing or barbell squats, you might want to stretch your lats .
Foam rollers and dynamic stretching can come in handy at this stage. Foam rollers can help relax muscles like a gentle massage. Dynamic stretches are warming movements that force your joints to do whatever range of motion you ask them to do later. Google “mobility works for ___” and you get a lot of ideas.
Ultimately, what you use in this section of your warm-up should be what will best help you succeed later in your workout. Experiment by adding or taking things out.
Activation exercises prepare the muscles
Sometimes it’s nice to do an exercise that uses all the muscles that you’ll be using in your main workout, but with less weight or even a completely different movement. For example, striped glute bridges can help you prepare for a workout that focuses on squats or thighs.
To be completely clear, you don’t need to “activate” the muscles to be able to use them later, even if trophy tape vendors try to convince you that this is an important step. These exercises simply give your muscles a preliminary idea of what they will be doing in the main exercise, and can help you do your warm-up sets a little faster in the main exercise (see below).
Exercise Technique Will Help You Improve Your Skills
If you are doing an exercise that requires precise technique, you can practice exercises that will help with that particular exercise. For example, before doing the snatch, I like to do barbell exercises: maybe a few hangs, overhead squats, or high snatches . Again, choose the exercises for this step depending on what technique you need to practice.
Finally: your warm-ups.
Now we’re really doing the climb! Let’s say you’re going to do 200 pound squats today. Just because you’re warmed up doesn’t mean you have to load the barbell 200 pounds and do it.
Everything above was optional. Warm-up kits, as most athletes and coaches agree, are a must. They can actually replace most of the steps above (for many people, for many exercises), because if you do enough warm-up sets, you will warm your body, make the necessary movements, activate your muscles and practice the technique. the elevator you are going to do.
Start by doing a set of the same number of reps or more as your work sets. So if you’re going to do 5 reps with 200 pounds, start with a 5-10 reps set with the bar only.
Then add some weight, and then add some more, and then some more until you reach your target weight for your first work set of the day. Accurate weight jumps are not important if you have multiple stops on your way to your work set for the day. So, for our 200 pound example, I could do 95 pounds, then 135, then 155, then 185, and finally start at 200. And I would probably do 5 reps for each, except with with lighter weights, I might prefer to do more, for example 10.
Putting it all together
I like to think of the warm-up before lifting weights as a combination of my warm-up sets (as described in the section above) plus whatever I need that my warm-ups don’t cover properly.
So if you feel like you need more physical activity than warm-up sets alone can give you, you can take a walk in the gym, spend five minutes on the treadmill to warm up your legs, and then do a foam roll and stretch in ankles before starting squats. … You haven’t done any activation techniques or work, but it’s okay if you don’t feel like you need it.
Or, if your mobility is okay, but you’re planning on doing a circular workout and hate being constantly out of breath between exercises, a more thorough cardio warm-up may be useful to make sure you’re ready for a fast paced workout.
The warm-up can be different for each workout or change over time. Older athletes often find that they need more warm-up time than they did when they were younger, and we may all need more warm-up time in cold weather than in hot weather. Figure out what makes sense to you and build your warm-up accordingly.