The warm up sweet spot
So while I’m waiting for my client to join me on the gym floor.
I had a few spare minutes.
So naturally, I’m looking around.
Observing.
Seeing what the general public is doing with their gym time.
And (obviously) saw something I thought I’d share:
>
A guy warming up for barbell squats.
Nothing out of the ordinary to start with.
Shotgunned the rack & started his routine.
Fairly standard:
A few lower-body stretches
Swinging the arms out a bit
“Loosening” up the joints
NOT the warm-up I recommend doing …
But hey - a lot of people this kind of thing and it’s not a deal breaker.
Anyway.
A few minutes of this go by.
And I thought he would THEN start the exercise. Barbell Squats.
No no no.
He does ANOTHER 5-10 minutes of “core activations”
(I’m not 100% sure because I didn’t actually ask him what he was doing … But 99% confident he was ‘warming up’ his core before squats, you can just tell)
Ab rollouts
Plank twist things
Leg Raises
Man was doing a FULL on 5-minute ab workout before his first exercise π
He wasn’t activating. He was fatiguing.
His abs / a lot of other muscles will have been pretty tired after that.
And then going into Squats?
Asking for trouble in my view.
And certainly not setting yourself up to perform at your best.
>
What should he have done?
If he wanted to activate his core before some heavy lifts.
A few ISOMETRICS (held contractions) would have done the trick.
5-10 second squeezes in a few different positions and violaπ€
There’s no need to do 10-minute warm-ups.
A better use of that time is to do more actual training.
Have a great evening.
Harry







