What’s your preferred warm up routine?

austinsugden

New member
I need to get better at warming up before I work out but don’t want to take a lot of time. What’s your best warmup routine and how long does it take? Specifically for full body.
 
@itjesus I do the sets with light weights but I also mess around. Move my legs around in squat position, move my back, etc.

I make sure to check and get a feeling for the muscles I'd use if something went wrong. It also lets me warm up my joints and different bits of my body.
 
@itjesus This is the warmup I use. It was prescribed by THE dr mike israetel. Doctor of exercise and sports science in the Bronx, NY, in the United States, of planet earth, in the Milky Way galaxy.
 
@austinsugden I row on a rowing machine for about 3 minutes to get the whole system going.

As I am doing gzclp at the moment, I warm up with the exercises themselves (for deadlifts, for instance, do some RDLs with the empty bar, then add weight in 10 kg steps, do less reps the more weight there is). I make sure to do at least one rep with a weight that is near the target weight. This way I am prepared for the weight and also will feel if something hurts (this is fitness30plus after all).

I have not taken the time, but I am quite sure that it's more than 5 minutes per exercise. I do two barbell exercises per session, so in total I have about 15 min warmup time.

I don't know if this fits your workout routine, but it has served me well so far.
 
@austinsugden I ride my bike to the gym — roughly 3 miles each way — which is the perfect warm-up. By the time I arrive, all I need to do are some targeted mobility exercises to warm up joints that tend to give me issues (for me this is forearms/wrists, hips, and ankles) as well as any joints I’ll be using in big lifts (so if I’m doing OHP that day, for example, I’ll make sure to incorporate some shoulder mobility work with resistance bands). I also usually do one or two core exercises to warm up the core — Supermans and leg lifts work for me.

Edited to add that doing a warm-up set for each big lift if you’re going to be lifting heavy is really important.
 
@austinsugden I do PPL, so I guess if I did full body, I would just do all of these things.

Every day:
  • Cat/cow a few times
  • Bird dogs (20 total)
  • Side planks (2 each side, ~20 seconds ea)
P/P days:
  • Shoulder taps (start back on my heels and work my way out to plank position by the 20th tap)
  • Pause pushups (5)
  • Cuban presses with 5lb/10lb plates, whatever is convenient
Leg day:
  • Bodyweight squats (10ish reps each with legs at three different widths; emphasis on working my way down to really deep squats)
  • Kettlebell squats with a smaller kettlebell (10ish lbs, again, whatever is convenient)
  • Kettlebell squats with a slightly heavier kettlebell (30ish)
And then before my first lift, which is usually the most strenuous (e.g., bench, squat), work my way up to my working weight with ~3 increasingly-heavy warmup sets. I'm usually doing my main lift by 10-12 minutes in, so if I was warming up full body, I guess 15 minutes.
 
@austinsugden Stuart McGill 3 - bird dog 10s 6 reps, side planks hold 10s for 6 reps, crunches 40. Then I walk around in a square crouched with a band around my knees to activate the glutes for 1-2 minutes.
 
@austinsugden I just use a few sets at lighter weight for the exercise im going to do.

Never saw the point of warming up on a bike or treadmill, if I'm gonna do chest or back first . Or if you are doing legs, what's the chance the machine you want is available when you finish warming up? So for example if I'm doing squats, I'll start with a set of 20 with just the bar, fill rangebof movement, then if my working weight is 100kg, I'll do sets of 40kg for 10, 60kg for 10, and finally 80kg for 5, before my working sets. If my hips are feeling stiff after the first warmup set, I'll add in some kettlebell swings between those warm up sets.

As for stretching, science has shown that we're weaker in our workouts if we stretch before. So keep static stretches to the end. By all means, throw in dynamic stretches before hand to loosen up, but don't use them to push your flexibility beyond what's normally comfortable, that's what the static ones are for.
 
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