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Warm up for squats

856 views 12 replies 10 participants last post by  Anytimestrength 
#1 ·
Suffered joint inflammation in most of my joints for a year. Now a year later and it still takes me approximately 15-30 minutes to warm up before I can do a leg or treadmill session.

How can I improve this. Currently I only stretch on my workouts, would stretching more frequently be a solution?

My warm up is; Calf, hams, hip flexors, tibias stretching. This can be a minute or more for each area, depending on how stiff iam.

Open to suggestions.
 
#2 ·
I don't do static stretching before squats, but concentrate more on dynamic type stretching.

I warm up my core before any session; in & outs, bridges, side planks (2x10 of each), then some cat/cow poses.

Then, on squat and deadlift days I do 3x10 kettle bell swings, 3x5 box jumps. I find box jumps great for firing up those fast twitch fibres.

Then, onto the rack, deep lunges/lizard pose, then a couple of sets with an empty bar.
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
as Dylan said, in my opinion dynamic stretches and light weight movements would be better on the day (although I do quite a bit less than he).. and keep the static stretching for days you aren't working those muscles, or after the workout if you wish

edit; the only static stretching I really do before a workout is hamstrings, glutes and hip flexors before a deadlift session, as these are always tight as I work an office job
 
#7 ·
i think by and large people massively over do warming up and usually at a detriment to their structural integrity

your body actually wants certain parts of you to remain tight, kind of like the structural cables of a bridge tower, if they were excessively loose then the tower would be unstable

ive even experienced this first hand many years back when i first started lifting i thought i needed more mobility than i actually did for my lifting and as such ran limber 11 (google it) on off days from training and found that i just got injured more often and or fell out of position easier during a lift i wanted to remain rigid in (SBD)

that said i think aside from a very specific to the individual's unnatural tightness simply performing a few sets of goblet squats to open up the hips followed by 3-5 reps with an empty bar, 60kg for 3-5 reps and then controlled singles up to their working weight is an ample squat warm up to a set of 12 or a 1rm

the main thing to remember is to treat 20kg like your 1rm and your 1rm like 20kg

and what i mean by that is your intention should be to make every rep look identical inc all of your bracing, walk out and rerack
 
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