I don’t know about you, but when squats or deadlifts are on the plan, it always takes me a bit longer to warm up. There are a lot of moving parts to performing each lift safely and effectively, much more than with upper-body movements like the bench press or pull-ups.
Upper-body moves also need warming up, but they often invite a more relaxed approach compared with lower-body work. It’s mostly my own observation, but it’s common to see someone wander into the gym, head to the bench press, and dive into the session without much of a warm-up, while the same person might linger before deadlifting, as if their spine is telling them to slow down.
Let’s be honest: when you’re in a rush, the warm-up is usually the first thing you skip. We skip it, our friends skip it, and it’s not realistic to pretend we’re all warming up perfectly every time. I’d be surprised if most people actually do it 50% of the time.
As a fitness professional, the warm-up is a bit of a catch-22. It’s clearly important. People are tight, or stiff, or too loose, or somewhere in between. The warm-up helps address movement faults, whether it’s tight hips, immobile t-spine, or general movement malaise. It also raises body temperature, lubricates joints, and prepares the central nervous system for training. It’s during this phase that we can fix movement dysfunction and set people up for a productive session.
On the flip side, a warm-up can become a drawn-out ritual. Some people spend 45 minutes foam-rolling every inch of their body and doing endless corrective work before touching a dumbbell or barbell. To that, I often say:
Get off the foam roller. That’s why you’re always hurt.
Still, I lean toward the side of “better to warm up than skip it.” Lately I’ve been experimenting with more combo or hybrid drills to speed things up—for example, on a lower-body day that includes squats or deadlifts.
GLUTE BRIDGE W/ ROTATION
KEY NOTES
– Addresses both glute activation and thoracic spine rotation/mobility
– Don’t overdo lumbar extension at the top. Feel your glutes fire, then move everything as one unit when you rotate
– You should feel a stretch in the opposite hip as you rotate away from the moving side (if you rotate to the right, you’ll feel a stretch on the front of the left hip)
1-LEGGED RDL TO COSSACK SQUAT
This is one of my go-to hybrid drills because it tackles several goals at once.
KEY NOTES
– Try to lengthen the backside as much as possible—reach forward with your arms and extend the moving leg back
– Minimize hip rotation—the toe of the moving leg should point toward the floor and toward the midline
– Keep a “soft” knee on the standing leg
– The aim of the Cossack squat is to sit back into the hips. If range of motion is limited, work with what you can and don’t worry if you can’t reach the ground yet
– Keep the heel down; it’s fine to point the toes of the straightened leg upward
– If you need to use your hands for support on the first few reps, that’s okay. The goal is to perform without relying on them eventually
BEAR SQUAT
KEY NOTES
– Start in a deep squat. Push the knees out with the elbows to promote hip abduction, and keep the chest tall; thoracic spine extension is important
– When you walk out, avoid collapsing the shoulder blades. Push away from the floor to engage the serratus
– The walk-out helps with anterior core engagement and also provides ankle and big-toe dorsiflexion
– Try not to let the lower back sag or the torso wobble. Imagine there’s a bottle of water on your back and you don’t want it to spill
– You can add an overhead reach before you bear crawl out to increase the challenge
JUST A TASTE
There are endless exercises I could showcase, but these give you a quick taste of moves you can use before a lower-body session to speed up your warm-up while targeting the common problem areas you’ll want to address before tackling squats or deadlifts hard. Give them a try and tell me what you think. If you’re not familiar with the reference, you may want to look up 1991-92.
