Many exercisers have a bad habit of skipping their warmup—this is not a good idea!

Your body needs time to prime and prep for your workout. Without a proper warmup, you increase your risk of injury, and it’s likely that your performance will also suffer.[1]

So before you jump right into the challenge portion of your next workout, take 20-40 minutes to prepare your body.

There are 4 main parts to the warmup routine that I suggest for my clients: foam rolling (or myofascial release), cardio warmup, dynamic stretches, and priming exercises. Each of these pieces is important for loosening your muscles, getting your blood circulating, raising your core temperature, and preparing your joints for challenge work. Let’s take a more detailed look at each portion of your warmup in the sections below.

1. Foam Rolling/Myofascial Release

It’s normal to develop tightness and tension in your muscles. Most people, for example, develop tightness in their backs, necks, hips, shoulders, quads, & hamstrings. This tightness can lead to discomfort or pain in the joints or muscles when you use them.

Before working out, it’s a good idea to apply pressure to your tight muscles using a foam roller, medicine ball, or other similar device. This works like a massage, promoting blood flow, relaxation, and increasing your range of motion.

To do myofascial release with a foam roller, place the foam roller either on the floor or against a wall. Then lean against the foam roller (or lay on top of it) with the muscle you’re trying to loosen directly on the foam roller. Then slowly move your body back and forth or side to side, allowing the foam roller to roll under the muscle.

It’s normal to feel some discomfort when you apply pressure to tight muscles—but you should stop if you feel any sharp pain (which may indicate an injury). If you just feel mild discomfort, that means the foam roller is putting pressure on a tight area—which is what we want! Continue to roll over tight muscles for 20-60 seconds and then rest for 30-60 seconds. Repeat for 1-3 rounds. As you continue to put pressure on your muscles with your foam roller, the tightness and discomfort should begin to ease up over time.

Check out the videos below for more information on how to use a foam roller on the major muscle groups in the legs. You can find more foam rolling tutorial videos on my youtube channel Foam Rolling playlist.

2. Cardio Warmup

After foam rolling, spend 5-10 minutes doing some light to moderate-intensity cardio. The goal of this part of your warmup is to increase your heart rate, get blood and oxygen flowing to your muscles, and increase your core temperature. I suggest walking on a treadmill or using a cardio machine at the gym at a moderate intensity (between 64% and 76% of your max heart rate).[2]

3. Dynamic Stretches

After your cardio warmup, take some time to perform some dynamic stretches. Dynamic stretches involve taking the joints through their full range of motion—extending and contracting the muscles at a controlled pace with little to no resistance. This is an opportunity for you to check in with your body and identify any tight muscles or trigger points that need extra attention (i.e., more stretching, more foam rolling, etc).

4. Priming Exercises

Priming exercises are one of the most important pieces to an effective warmup. These exercises are specific to the type of workout you’ll be doing. They serve to connect your mind to the muscles that will need to be activated in the challenge portion of your workout, and they also allow you to rehearse movements that you’ll be doing at a lighter intensity.

For example, while priming before practicing heavy squats, I’ll usually do squats with no weight and a loop resistance band below my knees. This allows me to practice the movement and reinforce safe technique.

Priming exercises might also include corrective exercises to fire up muscles that you have difficulty activating during your challenge sets. Before I practice bench press, for example, I’ll do various exercises to activate my external shoulder rotator muscles. These are the muscles that pull your shoulders back, correcting my bad posture from working at a computer all day. Connecting with these assisting muscles before jumping into my challenge sets helps me to prevent injury from doing my lifts with poor posture.

Here are a few priming exercises that I like to use to prime my body every time I work out:

Cat Cows

Every time you train, you should practice keeping your core muscles engaged. Cat-Cows can help you to fire up those core muscles and loosen tight back muscles. You can perform this exercise on the floor, standing, or seated.

Bent Arm Pull Apart

Many of us have poor posture from sitting at a computer or on our phones all day. Whenever you train, you should practice good posture to keep your body in alignment and reduce the risk of injury. The Bent-Arm Pull Apart with a resistance band is one of my favorite exercises for firing up the external shoulder rotator muscles and lats (the muscles that pull your shoulders down and back). Doing this exercise before you work out can help correct forward-rounded shoulders.

Monster Walks

The gluteus medius muscles in the sides of your hips are important assisting muscles in compound exercises like the squat and deadlift. However many people have trouble firing up these muscles during their lifts, which can cause instability in the knees and ankles. Before I do any major exercise for my legs, I always perform monster walks with a loop resistance band to connect with these muscles so that they fire properly during my challenge sets.

As you warm up, listen to your body and spend extra time on any stretches or exercises that you may need.

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[1] Ribeiro, B., Pereira, A, Neves, P., Marinho,  D., Marques, M., & Neiva, H. 2021. The effect of warm-up in resistance training and strength performance: a systematic review, Motricidade, 2021, Vol. 17 No. 1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.6063/motricidade.21143

[2] Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. 2022. Target heart rate and estimated maximum heart rate, https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/measuring/heartrate.htm#2

JAYD HARRISON (JAYDIGAINS)

Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and affiliate streamer on Twitch. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:30am EST for a Fit Q&A session.

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