As a younger man, my warm-ups consisted of static stretching and a light jog. Nowadays, I warm up differently because I recognize that a good warm-up can not only help prevent injuries, but it can also help to improving your training as well.

Over the past few years, internet gurus have made things a bit nuts when it comes to warming up. I’ve seen crazy warm-ups, but it’s the increase in foam rolling, band work, and so forth that has really stuck out the most.

These modalities aren't necessarily a bad thing. However, I can’t say they're a great stand-alone way to warm-up. This doesn't mean you should discredit them, because they do have merit. But, they’re most certainly best used at the end of a training session, not the start.

I take exception with these tools primarily due to their inability to achieve the holistic preparatory effect required of a good warm-up.

So, I’m sure you’re wondering, what exactly constitutes a good warm-up?

Well, a good performance-enhancing warm-up should be composed of several different things. In no particular order, this includes the following:

1) It should create a light sweat and promote blood flow to connective tissue and muscle.
2) It should stimulate and prepare the central nervous system for training.
3) It should offer low impact on the joints.
4) It should be progressively dynamic.
5) It should be flexible in design in order to accommodate an athlete’s recovery from day to day.
6) It should be easily adjustable based on ever-changing goals.
8) It should allow for progressive density-style technique work.
9) It should take the majority of your joints through a full range of motion.
10) It should allow for increases in weight and volume as the body adapts.

In regards to that last point, I’d like to quickly discuss warm-up weights. Please keep in mind that this is merely a warm-up. It is important to allow your body to gradually adjust to the stimulus over time.

Although these are fairly rough guidelines, I think you can use them to effectively create your own warm-up regardless of your preferred training method.
With that said, I’d like to give you a few examples of my warm-ups and talk about how they correlate to the points listed above.


Kettlebell Warm-up

3 Evolutions of:

5 Single arm Russian kettlebell swings (each arm)
5 Kettlebell goblet squats
5 Single arm kettlebell snatches (each arm)
5 dips (any strict bodyweight movement can be substituted)
1 Minute of dynamic stretching (focus on joints progressively from the floor up)

This warm-up is one of my personal favorites due to its progressively dynamic nature. I think the gradual ascent from a swing to a snatch provides my nervous system a slow ramp-up in preparation for my daily training session.

Also, the flexibility of the bodyweight component allows me to adjust this element to coincide with my immediate goals (hypertrophy, rehab, etc.).

A good example of how I’d manipulate the bodyweight element would be if I was training for an endurance event and I wanted to prevent the loss of lean muscle mass in my shoulders and chest. In this scenario, I may add a set of eight bodyweight ring push-ups.

Another important component of this example is the final portion of dynamic stretching. This piece offers me time to work on my mobility issues while providing a short rest before the next iteration.

I’ll often use this warm-up once a week and increase it one evolution weekly until I reach five rounds. Once I’ve achieved this volume, I usually increase the kettlebell weight and lower the volume back to the initial starting point.

Barbell Warm-up

Every minute on the minute for 10 minutes:

Odd minute complete:

5 Straight Leg Deadlifts
5 Bent-over rows
5 Hang Power Cleans
5 Front Squats
5 Presses

Even Minute complete:

Rest 1 minute

I know...I know...it’s just a barbell complex. But it’s a great warm-up if you're planning on training a speed-strength barbell session.

You may have noticed that I left out a bodyweight component in this example. This is due to the increased load this warm-up places on the nervous system. The extra volume of a bodyweight movement would just drain the athlete.

This is a pretty challenging warm-up and the weights should be kept light. Inevitably, you’ll be breathing hard.

I think this particular warm-up directly speaks to the progressive density-style technique work I’ve mentioned before. If you’re trying to master the classic lifts this is a great way to get some additional technical work done at light weight.

From a performance perspective, this one really wakes up your CNS. It’s a great way to prepare for a dynamic weightlifting session.

Dumbbell Warm Up

2-4 Evolutions of:

10 Standing hammer curls
10 Standing lateral raises/front raises (alternate each round)
10 Standing Arnold presses
10 Elevated Split squats (5 each leg)

Rest 2 minutes

I personally add this warm-up into my training as hockey season rolls around. Honestly, I think it’s the hardest of all these.

Mind you, I’m an old bag and I don't play in a competitive check-hockey league, but there’s always a bit of banging around in the corners and the occasional fight.

So, as a safety precaution, I’ll add this warm-up into the mix before the season starts.

My goal with this particular warm-up is to increase muscle mass around the shoulder girdle. This helps to stabilize and protect my already damaged shoulders during contact.

You may have noticed that I’ve thrown in a bilateral lower body element to this one.
This helps to achieve the standard of holistically warming up all the joints.

It also helps by stretching my tight anterior hip capsule that is exacerbated by skating, while helping to strengthen the glute medius which stabilizes my knees.

Predator Warm-up

No, this isn’t designed for pedophiles, you sick bastards. It was designed for one of my recent high altitude elk hunts.

3 rounds of:
1 Jog-Suicide-Burpee (Jog ten meters and complete a burpee and jog back to the starting line. Continue this progression out to 40 meters.)
3 Shots at 10 meters with my daughter’s pink BB gun (Alternate each round - prone, offhand, kneeling)

I’m sure most of you are wondering what the hell this is all about. Ultimately, it helped me train the transition from large compound movements under physical duress to the fine motor skills needed to shoot.

It also helped me to mentally prepare and reinforce this type of specific training. It helped temper my commitment to the end task of responsibly and ethically hunting a large animal.

This warm-up also helped me to psychologically prepare for these training sessions. The majority of which were long, mind-numbing, slugfests that really challenged my will to train this way--examples of which are sitting your ass on a rower for an hour and a half or strapping a 50# pack on your back and alternate doing step-ups or using a ski erg for a half an hour.

Wrapping it up

As you can see, these warm-ups are specific to my needs as an athlete throughout my seasons. I hope they act as fuel for your creativity in developing your own specialized approach.

These warm-ups are also good examples of how to use common and/or uncommon tools in the gym to create an elegant and effective warm-up routine based on your needs.

It’s important to remember that these examples are simply points of reference and aren't intended to be used by everyone. However, I think the architecture can be modified or copied in order to help you build a solid template.

The main take away is that warm-ups can be a great way to improve performance while mitigating the potential for injury. The performance improvement element of a good warm-up is dependent upon the way we prime the nervous system with movement. In this vein, it’s important that we chose warm-up exercises that correspond to the day’s training session in order to see maximal results.

At the end of the day it would behoove all trainees to use these types of warm-ups in order to get the most out of each training session. Besides, they’re a lot more fun than slogging away on a treadmill.