Master a Quick Warm Up

There are a million and one different ways to warm up, but we typically want to think about going from general to specific. This means we’ll start by warming up our body in general, then move to more specific movements that we’d see in our workout. I like to call this the “foreshadowing” phase.

Keep in mind the purpose of the warm up is to:

• Increase heart rate

• Increase blood flow

• Prepare our brain and body to exercise

Step 1: general (increase heart rate)

• Spend a couple minutes doing anything to get your heart rate up (jogging, biking, jumping jacks, whatever you prefer)

Step 2: more specific (mimic the movements we’ll be doing in the workout)

• If your workout will include barbell squats, mimic that pattern by doing air squats, kang squats, body weight lunges, etc

• If your workout will include bench press, mimic that pattern by doing a couple push ups

Step 3: bar warm ups/lighter sets

• Warm up each lift with lighter sets, beginning with the bar and increasing weight until you get to your working sets

Here’s a sample full body warm up:

This includes steps 1 and 2:

• 3-5 minutes of rowing

• 8 knee hugs

• 8 frankensteins

• 8 lunge with reach

• 8 lateral lunge

• 8 kang squats (hip hinge to squat)

• 8 shoulder pass throughs

• begin to warm up barbell lifts

And there it is! That’s basically my tried and true formula. Your warm up shouldn’t take you half an hour, 5-10 minutes is a perfectly adequate time frame.

If you have any questions or would like to talk more about warm ups, please feel free to send me an email. Thanks for reading, see you next Friday!

-Jory