COACH

If you walk into the weight room and immediately begin squatting, benching, or deadlifting, you are part of a small minority in the world of strength sports. For many lifters today, the warm-up receives almost as much attention as the working sets. This, in recent years, has been due to a surge in perceived importance of proper mobility, evidenced by the popularity of pre-written movement programs such as Joe DeFranco's Limber 11 Flexibility Routine. But Clint Darden does things a little differently.

For him, the most important part of warming up for your training session is simple: reach a point that allows you to reach proper position for that day's lift. If you're too sore, too tight, or too immobile to squat, bench, or deadlift, that should be addressed in the warm-up. Otherwise? You're good to go.

In this video, Darden discusses the fine line between not doing enough and doing too much. He talks about the reverse hyper and good morning—two exercises that improve his deadlift—and how pre-fatiguing through special exercises might increase your work capacity and make you a better lifter.

WATCH: Darden Q&A From the Compound — Weightlifting for Strongman, Deadlift Stance



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Clint Darden

EliteFTS Table Talk— Where strength meets truth. Hosted byDave Tate, Table Talk cuts through the noise to bring raw, unfiltered conversations about training, coaching, business, and life under the bar. No fluff. No hype. Just decades of experience — shared to make you stronger in and out of the gym.

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