Your warm up is important and I’d argue an essential and under programmed aspect of training.
There are a million ways that one can warm up for a lift or other type of physical activity. The most important thing is that your warm up is relevant to the type of training you’re going to be doing THAT DAY. The warm up I am sharing today is designed for someone who will be lifting weights in a functional manner.
A warm up should:
- Get the body warm
- Prepare the body for movement (from sedentary to end ranges)
- Stretching, getting neuromuscularily primed (brain muscle connection)
- Heighten your awareness of any limitations/soreness you have.
My clients in Built By Annie and One on One do a full body warm up everyday because regardless of what you’re lifting, it’s important to get into end ranges as often as we can. If you don’t use it, you lose it.
Some people get warm quicker than others. My husband only needs two minutes to get a sweat going. I need more like 7-10 to feel loose and warm. You can: jog, bike, row, jump rope, stair climb or do any form of cardio to get the heart rate up.
Then, we enter those end ranges. See the video below for my full body warm up.
Here is a list of the warm up movements from start to finish:
- Quad walks
- Knee Hugs
- Inchworms
- Single leg walking hamstring stretch
- Hip openers (+ T spine rotation & knee taps)
- Lateral lunge slides
- Deep squat to hip extension
- T Spine wall stretch + single arm rotations
- Wall chest opener
- Wrist pronation & supination rocks
If you’re rehabbing from an injury, your warm up will be more specific and more lengthy than this. But for an everyday warm up, this is the ticket. You’ll be more than ready for most lifting scenarios, warm, primed, and aware.
This warm up was created as a bonus video for Movement 101 (my exercise encyclopedia with demo videos & tutorials). If you found this helpful, maybe, just maybe Movement 101 is for you my friend. If not, cool too. Get warm and enjoy your lift.
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