How do you determine the ideal warm-up?

Do you stretch?

Do you spend time rolling around on a foam roller?

Do you get under the bar and start hammering a few reps?

Instead of dropping the famed response of "it depends," I want to take a deeper dive into the
decision-making process that leads you to make the decisions that are best for you.

Dave and I discussed this recently on episode 74 of the podcast, which can be found here.

Before I continue, as with all my articles, this may not fit your worldview, experience level, or
training abilities. That is perfectly fine. Please take what you can from the information and make it work
in your particular situation.

The warm-up begins with a goal and direction in mind.

As with most things, it is clear that the best way to begin something is with the end in mind.

Are you a competitive powerlifter that is prepping for a meet?

Are you a strongman competitor in the offseason?

Are you a strength enthusiast who wants to get stronger?

Are you an athlete looking to prep for a mid-season training session?

Or are you an old, washed-up meathead who is just trying to keep it all together?

Regardless, you need to warm up differently and utilize different means based on weaknesses, injury history, day jobs, etc.

The one thing that unites all of these people is trying to achieve the highest level of training, which will provide them the most positive impact and land them closer and closer to their goals.

We are not trying to have the most elaborate and complicated warm-up, period. We're also not trying to spend as much time as possible activating every single muscle.

You do not win trophies, titles, records, matches, and games in the warm-up circle. You can prep your glutes until the cows come home, but you will never win the gold medal if you never get in the game and use that ass for something other than glute bridges.

Training and performance are always the goals and that is what we are striving to accomplish.

So with that rant over, let's jump into the principles that I truly believe will be the most beneficial to understand when setting up a pre-training routine that will get you feeling good, moving well, and maximizing your time for the more meaningful training.

Principle 1: Understand the Goal of the Training Session and HOW You'll Be Training

In other words, this is your needs analysis.

If your goal for the training session is three sets of three for back squats, you will be doing a far different
preparation than a football player focusing on sprints and Olympic lifting. If you're a bodybuilder who primarily utilizes machines, your prep will be far different from a strongman doing log clean and presses.

Consider the types of exercises, reps, sets, and loads you will use for the training session. Also, consider the types of equipment you will be utilizing, the speed at which you will be using them, and the energy systems you will be targeting.

Take a powerlifter going into a max effort squat session where the goal is to hit a new max with the SS Yoke Bar with a free squat.

What are the positions, postures, and loads that he'll be in?

Let's do a quick needs analysis for the SS Yoke Bar squat variation.

The requirements for a max effort SS Yoke Bar squat session include:

  • Adequate hip/knee extension
  • Adequate ankle torsiflexion
  • Adequate internal/external rotation of the hip
  • Adequate torso/brace tension (ribs, diaphragm, pelvis)
  • Anti-flexion/extension
  • Anti-lateral flexion/extension
  • Anti-rotation
  • Internally stabilized exercise (skill/practice)

Wow, that seems like a lot and to be honest, it is. Realize, not everyone will need to warm up all of these attributes. This list is where the individual situations pop up. You need to understand yourself, your body, and what it is you need to focus on to get ready.

You are also going to notice I use the word "adequate" when referring to each particular attribute. That is because the goal should be to get ENOUGH of each one to be able to perform the task at hand. It, again, is going to be different for everyone based on leverages, preexisting conditions, injuries, or the athletic level of the person. More on this in the next section.

The final point I noted above is that the SS Yoke Bar squat is an internally stabilized movement. That means that it requires you to find the stability to complete the movement via your own body and skill. This is the opposite of an externally stabilized exercise such as a leg press which has you seated in the machine and gives you the support you need to perform the movement. With internally stabilized exercises, you are working on the skill of the movement because the first thing to break down is going to be your form as opposed to an externally stabilized exercise where you can come closer and closer to muscular failure and push the output of that exercise.

Principle 2: Understand Where You're Coming From

This is an important principle that people tend to forget when it comes to training. It's one of the first lines of questioning I ask a new client.

"What have you been doing?" is an important piece of information that can help you decide what needs to be looked at in terms of prepping for a training session. This again, just like with the majority of the information you are reading, is vastly personal to you because nobody does the exact thing that you do.

For this example, let's look at a client or athlete getting out of their office job.

For the last eight hours, he experienced:

  • Reduced overall activity
  • Potential mental stress
  • Long hours of a seated position (commute and work day)
  • Long hours of forward head position/rounded shoulders/lumbar flexion (Slouching in
  • chair)
  • Potential lack of quality nutrition
  • Potential lack of hydration (excessive caffeine)
  • Waking up early with lack of sleep


If you worked at this job all day, did not get too many steps in, sat at your desk all day, and barely drank or ate enough quality food to sustain a small child, then how do you think you would fair with your ability to get under a heavy SS Yoke Bar for max effort day?

If you are younger, then you might be able to just roll out of the car and get to work, but for the majority of
us, that is simply not the case. Your body has been used to sitting in that forward flexed position and you will be more prone to tweaks, injuries, and a lack of performance if you do not take the time to correct your body's positioning.

Now imagine the warm-up someone will do who has spent the entire day on their feet working landscaping or construction, or at the very least took frequent breaks to move and stretch throughout the day.

Although coming from work is not the only variable to think about when trying to understand how best to prepare for your training session, the time of day matters as well. If you are rolling out of bed and are expecting to hit a PR (without breakfast), you could be in a world of disappointment.

When merely thinking about spinal health, attempting to lift heavy weights first thing in the morning may not be the best idea. The discs in your spine have absorbed liquid during the night and are larger and softer (it goes back to normal about an hour or so after waking). In this scenario, you could be more prone to injury if you do not prepare appropriately. This is not to scare you or to confuse you but rather to help you ask better questions about yourself to make better decisions about how you plan on getting ready to train.

Principle 3: Bridge the Gap Between Where You Are and Where You Want to Be

So far, we have figured out what we need to do for the training session, and we're aware of what positions we were in prior to the training session. Now we're on to the bread and butter of actually taking that information and utilizing it to warm up effectively for the session.

Let's use the powerlifter and office worker from above, so you see the thought process firsthand of how to help each athlete shift from where they are to where they want to be.

The first step to understanding what gaps we need to fill is to have a conversation. I always start my clients with a talk to get an idea of where their heads are, how they are feeling, and where they currently are.

During this conversation, the powerlifter mentions that he is in a fight with this wife, his boss is an asshole,
traffic was a disaster, and his lower back is feeling tight. He knows that he has a heavy squat planned for tonight and says he will be ready.

Red Flag Alert

Stress is high, his head is not in his training, and if he were to try and get under the bar with all of this going on then he will either get hurt or miss a weight that we both know he could hit.

So what do we do?

We address the key factors that will help him make that shift into performance mode. We do this by utilizing "gatekeeper" exercises.

These are exercises that help showcase the skills and attributes that someone will need to complete a training session. For this session, I have gone with the tried and true combo of a walking lunge into a high knee RDL. This single movement helps me to check things off the list in terms of skills needed for my athlete to succeed.

The walking lunge into high knee RDL allows me to see:

  • Hip extension/flexion
  • Lateral hip stability
  • Torso/bracing/breathing control
  • Internal vs external rotation of the hip
  • Overall focus on the task at hand

He does not do a great job. He is moving sloppy, he can't seem to get his head out of his ass, and he's frustrated.

Red Flag Alert

He is not ready to squat heavy. If he cannot complete simple bodyweight movements and stabilize, he will not have much success squatting a maximal weight safely. We need to intervene and see if we can make this outcome better. Below you will see a circuit that I would implement to work on a few things all at once.

First, we are working on increasing the mobility of the hip via the couch stretch, pigeon stretch, and the seated 90/90. These movements attack the hip through all planes of motion because, as we know, sitting at a desk all day will stiffen up the hip flexors and not allow for adequate glute activation and, therefore, hip extension.

Secondly, you'll notice that these stretches are done for breaths. These breaths will shut his brain off, focus on breathing, as well as maintain a stacked ribcage and pelvis. He'll be able to distance himself from the stressors of the outside world and focus on the training ahead. It also allows him to bring attention to his bracing and get some core stiffening during this rotation. All of which will help during his squats.

Finally, I'm incorporating the lateral hip stability exercise of the hip airplane to paint the edges of his hip joint and get him to open up into ranges of motion that he has not been in all day. You will not be able to access ranges of motion that you are unable to stabilize. Using the hip airplane as a stability drill, we are getting his body to reconnect with lateral movement, get that glute med to do its job, and help him shift into the demands of training safer and more effectively.

These exercises can be done by holding on to a wall or a rack, then progressing to no assistance.

  • A1 Couch Stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A2 Pigeon Stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A3 Seated 90/90 stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A4 Hip Airplanes, 5 each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • Retest Gatekeeper exercise

Yellow Flag Alert

This time he was much more locked in and said that his back is feeling better and he feels more "present" to the task at hand.

This explanation is very good.

We have now helped him shift gears and refocus on the task at hand. Now we can pivot back to the normally scheduled plan for the day with one caveat—we need to make sure that his squats are looking good enough to load. There is a difference between "feeling" locked in and objectively being locked in.

Below you will see that we will repeat the warm-up routine one more time, but instead of going back to the gatekeeper exercise, we are starting to get under the bar. As you can see, we're at a drastically different place than we thought we would be from how he was acting initially.

  • A1 Couch Stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A2 Pigeon Stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A3 Seated 90/90 stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A4 Hip Airplanes, 5 each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A5 SS Yoke bar x 10 reps empty bar

Yellow Flag Alert

Now we are cooking with gas. He is moving pretty well, and you can see a definitive shift in demeanor, attitude, and focus. That being said, the squats do not look AS good as they have before. You need to determine whether this comes from a technical issue or a physiological issue attributed to his sitting all day.

So what do we do?

Go through the routine one more time and see if it works itself out.

  • A1 Couch Stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A2 Pigeon Stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A3 Seated 90/90 stretch, 6 breaths each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A4 Hip Airplanes, 5 each side (Stacked ribcage and pelvis)
  • A5 SS Yoke bar x 10 @ 155

Green Flag Alert

Boom. That was it. The bar loaded at 155 moved perfectly, his form is locked in, and he is excited to train. At one point, he was in a completely miserable mood with no hope of training well, to getting the train back on track based on the performance indicators.

You may be thinking to yourself, "Wow won't this take a long time?" The answer is no. Each round takes roughly two to three minutes if done efficiently. You are looking at 12-15 minutes total—a short amount of time considering
the direct impact on your training ability. You'll feel better, move better, be stronger, and feel happier.

Realize, not every single training day requires this sort of focus in preparation. This is the joy of the gatekeeper exercise. If you're locked in and feeling great, then you do not need to spend the extra time foam rolling, stretching, or mobilizing. These days you can push harder, get a bit more volume in, and enjoy running on all cylinders.

The Bottom Line

This article is certainly a long one, but you must understand the level of depth, care, and focus you need to determine a proper warm-up. Use this framework and principle-based approach to address the level of readiness you have for yourself. It is a means of cutting through the subjective bullshit in your head to provide objective readiness scores.

Now you may be starting to realize just why the answer "it depends" comes out of my mouth every time I have to field a question about warm-ups, mobility, or prep work. It all depends on who you are, what you have or have not been doing, and what type of training you have to do.

There are no hard and fast rules that apply to everyone. To be the strongest, fastest, and most successful, you have to make sure you are getting the most out of training.

Sam Brown is a coach at elitefts, developing the next generation of coaches and athletes. Owner of Practice Movement and Recovery LLC, he consults clients to get out of pain and boost performance—one of the few McGill Method Practitioners in the United States. He’s a strongman and competes in the 198- to 200-pound weight class.