Tag Archives: warm up

How to Warm-Up, Part Two: The Bench Press

Posted on by
4

Today’s blog is Part Two of a three-part series on how to warm-up for the squat, bench press, and deadlift. This post is coauthored by Matt Skeffington and we’ll be showing you how to warm-up for the bench press. Enjoy!

In our previous installment, which you can read HERE, we gave you 8 proven reasons on why it’s important to warm-up before your strength training session. As a quick recap, warming up:

  • Decreases your risk of injury
  • Increases power
  • Increases speed
  • Increases strength
  • Increases body temperature
  • Increases motor unit recruitment (especially high-threshold MU’s)
  • Increases energy production
  • Increases flexibility

Today we’re going to show you how to properly warm-up for the bench press. Contrary to popular belief, the bench press is a full-body exercise. As such, our warm-up will cover the whole body. While there may be an upper body emphasis (as there was a lower body emphasis with the squat warm-up), we feel it’s imperative to get the whole body moving and prepared for exercise, not only as a benefit during the subsequent training session, but also to promote long-term movement quality and health.

Now let’s break down the bench press and see what we’ll be focusing on during our warm-up so you can set some new PRs in the gym!

Feet

Always, always, always have your feet flat on the floor during the bench press. Having your feet connected to the ground will give you stability, allow you to effectively transfer force from the ground to the bar, and allow you to activate your glutes. In other words, you will not only be safer, but stronger and able to lift more weight. So no feet in the air allowed while you’re benching!

Fail.

Position your feet outside your hips and slightly behind your knees. This provides you with a good foundation so you can get your whole body into the lift.

Knees

Your knees, much like a perfect squat, are in line with your toes (the second toe, to be specific). Since your knees will also be outside your hips, it’s important that you give your adductors some attention, ensuring their quality and length. Therefore, we’ll be addressing the adductors in the warm-up.

Glutes

Get those glutes tight! Besides being an external rotator of the hip, the glutes also serve as a powerful hip extensor. Your butt should remain on the bench when pressing, giving you a sturdy base, and by engaging them, they encourage that whole body tension that is necessary for a big bench. As a result, glute activation will be an integral part of our warm-up.

In order for the glutes to effectively extend the hip, you’ll need to have, among other things, adequate hip flexor length. That’s also something we’ll be incorporating into our warm-up.

Lumbar Spine

Your lower back should be in its natural, lordotic posture. There’s no need to hyperextend the lumbar spine here, as we’re not preparing you for a powerlifting meet!

Chest/Upper Back/Shoulder

Throughout performance of the bench press, your chest should remain “out” and scapulae depressed and retracted (down and back). To get into this position, you must have adequate pec major/minor length and the ability to activate the rhomboids, middle/lower traps, and lats.

This position will promote thoracic extension and centration of the humeral head (ball) in the glenoid fossa (socket). This will permit smooth horizontal adduction and internal rotation of the shoulder joint as you press that bar up to lockout. Furthermore, it will prevent too much humeral extension.

Another benefit of being in the “chest out, shoulder blades down and back” position is that the bar will not have to travel as far. This is a great advantage if you’re looking to get stronger and add pounds to your bench press (who wouldn’t be, anyway?).

If you’re someone who squats, benches, and deadlifts on a regular basis, you’ll be reinforcing this “down and back” posture quite a bit. That’s certainly not a bad thing, but it’s important that you get your scapulae moving, specifically in elevation and upward rotation. This can be done by getting some upper trap and serratus anterior activation, and we’ll be attacking that in addition to promoting pec length, thoracic extension, and shoulder mobility in our warm-up.

Arms

At the bottom of your bench press, your elbows should be roughly 45 degrees from your sides, and your forearms should remain vertical through the whole duration of your press. With a 45 degree arm angle, the bar should touch your chest somewhere just below the nipple line, and your vertical forearms will allow for optimal force transmission into the bar.

Hands

The bar should be in tight to your thumb, on the heel of your hand, and your thumb should be wrapped around the bar (no thumbless grips!).

Not allowed!

As you press, think about spreading and twisting (like you’re closing a jar) the bar. This will get more of your back musculature involved and also place horizontal forces on the bar, in addition to the vertical forces inherent to the pushing motion, and ultimately allow you to bust through plateaus and lift more weight.

Bench Press Warm-up

After performing soft tissue work with a foam roller and lacrosse ball, proceed to the following warm-up:

1. Supine Bridge w/external rotation x 10

2. Half-kneeling Adductor Dips x 8/side

3. Bench T-spine Extension Mobilization x 10

4. Hip Flexor Stretch w/internal rotation x 20-30s/side

5. Scap Pushup to Yoga Pushup x 6

6. Split-stance PVC Pec Mobilization x 8/side

7. Standing Band Pulldown w/OH Shrug x 10

8. No Money Drill x 10

Pre-Work

A) Tall-kneeling Chest Pass w/hip extension – 3×5, rest 30-60s between sets

Here’s an example of what your warm-up with the barbell might look like if you plan on your first working set being at 225 lbs. for 5 reps:

Bar x 5

Bar x 5

95 lbs. x 5

135 lbs. x 5

185 lbs. x 3

225 lbs. x 5 (first working set)

Wrap-Up

This warm-up will keep you healthy and primed to hit some new PRs on the bench press. We hope you’ll give it a try before one of your next benching sessions!

Look out for our final installment on how to warm-up for the deadlift!

How to Warm-Up, Part One: The Squat

Posted on by
Reply

Today’s post is a collaboration between Matt Skeffington and I on how to warm-up for the squat. It is Part One of a three-part series we’ll be doing on how to warm-up for the squat, bench press, and deadlift. Enjoy!

It’s your big squat day. Trust us, we know how you feel. All day, you’re jacked up, ready to get to the gym to move some serious weight. In fact, you’re so excited you get out of your car and immediately head over to the squat rack. You get under the bar and begin your first warm-up set. Big mistake.

Your hips couldn’t be tighter from sitting at your desk all day so you’re only able to get into a quarter squat without your adductors ripping in half.  Your shoulders are stiffer than a board and you grimace in pain as you try to get your upper back and hands into a solid position. As you descend into your squat, you tip forward, putting a ton of stress on your low back because your ankles won’t move. Nothing feels good, nothing feels loose, and that 135 lbs. on your back feels more like 500 lbs.

Let’s back things up for a minute. Let’s say you decided to take the extra 10-15 minutes to do a comprehensive warm-up dedicated to getting you ready to squat. You would probably start by doing a little research, because after all, we exercise geeks love research. If you did a few searches on PubMed or the Journal of Strength and Conditioning you would find a variety of studies on various dynamic warm-up protocols and how warm-ups:

Of course the warm-ups done in these studies are very general in nature. We need all the benefits of a sound warm-up listed above, but also want something specifically designed for getting us ready to squat some big weight! Before designing our warm-up it’s important to understand what exactly our joints are doing during a squat so we can target those areas.

Take a look at the video below:

Feet

The first thing we want you to notice is foot position. As you can see, Conor sets up with his toes pointed out. Getting into the proper bottom position of a squat takes a considerable amount of hip flexion and internal rotation. Starting with your toes pointed slightly out allows your hips to start the squat in a position of external rotation. This allows gives your hips some freedom when descending into your squat. If your hip external rotators and extensors (glutes, hamstrings, etc.) are tight, we will not be squatting very deep or very safely. Don’t worry though; we will get your hips nice and mobile in the warm-up.

Ankles

Next up are the ankles. Notice in the side-view how Conor’s ankles allow his knees to slightly glide over his toes as he descends into his squat. Old school bro-science would tell us this is bad for our knees. It’s not.

We need a good amount of dorsiflexion in our ankles to allow us to squat deep while maintaining a solid neutral spine position. In fact, we need about 20 degrees of dorsiflexion to squat properly. If our calves are too stiff, we cannot properly dorsiflex, and we will compensate by either tipping forward or going into lumbar (low back) flexion. OUCH! Have no fear my squatting friends, we will get those calves ready!

Knees

Our next stop on the kinetic chain is the knees. Since the knee joint is mostly a hinge joint (we do have some medial/lateral rotation), the positioning of the knees is determined mostly by the hips. Let’s take a look at Conor’s hips as he squats. From the front you can see how Conor abducts his hips and his knees track out over the toes during the descent of his squat. This keeps his femur and tibia in a strong, neutral position. To get into this position, we need adequate adductor and hip flexor length as well as glute strength and stiffness. In this warm-up, we’ll get your glutes working double time!

Diaphragm

Let’s continue up to Conor’s abdomen. We’re going to let you in on a little secret. The key to moving big weights is not in your legs or your back. It all starts with proper functioning of the diaphragm. Notice how Conor finishes each rep by returning to a neutral spine position. What we mean by that is as he finishes each rep, he doesn’t lean back, look up, or over-arch his low back. He finishes each rep by squeezing his glutes and bracing his stomach, leaving his body in a perfectly neutral position. By maintaining a neutral position and keeping his ribcage down, Conor can exhibit good breathing mechanics and preserve a favorable Zone of Apposition.

With this optimal alignment, he can demonstrate rock-solid core stability from the inside-out. Conor now has 360 degrees of stability around his core, kind of like an invisible weight belt. Don’t worry, we’ll be practicing some diaphragmatic breathing in our warm-up.

Upper Back

Finally, we end our journey at the upper back. Watching the video from the back-view, you can see how Conor’s back is tight and engaged. This is due to a couple of things.  First, Conor has great extension through his thoracic spine, unlike most of us who are overly kyphotic because we sit all day.

Secondly, Conor’s ability to externally rotate his shoulders and posteriorly tilt and retract his scapulae allows his chest to stay tall and for his elbows to stay down during the squat. This is due to adequate length of his muscles involved in internally rotating his humerus and anteriorly tilting his scapulae. These include subscapularis, pec major and minor, as well as his lats. This is a huge part of a solid squat. Without the ability to keep his chest tall, Conor would be putting a lot more stress on his low back and would be constantly falling forward. And you thought the squat was a just a lower body lift! We’ll attack shoulder and thoracic spine mobility as well as upper back activation in the warm-up.

Squat Warm-Up

Foam Roll

  • If possible, use an elevated surface to foam roll your adductors
  • Include Supine Diaphragmatic Breathing (hips/knees flexed, feet flat) x 10 breaths

Mobility/Activation (*If you have a lot of joint laxity, only perform the standing drills below*)

1. Kneeling Glute Mobilization x 8/side

2. Single-leg Glute Bridge w/2 sec ISO at top x 6/side

3. Split-stance Adductor Mobilization x 8/side

4. Side-lying Extension Rotation x 8/side

5. Standing Hip Internal/External Rotation w/mini-band x 10/side

6. Knee-break Ankle Mobilization x 10

7. Forearm Wall Slides at 135 degrees w/OH Shrug and Lift-off x 8

8. Bowler Squats x 6/side

9. Walking Spiderman w/Hip Lift and OH Reach x 5/side

10. Alternating Lateral Lunge Walk x 5/side

Pre-Work

A1) Box Jumps – 3×5

A2) Wall Hip Flexor Mobilization (Back Knee Elevated) – 3×8/side

Now let’s say you’re planning on performing your first working set of 5 reps at 315 lbs. Your warm-up sets and reps might look like this:

Bar x 5

Bar x 5

135 lbs. x 5

185 lbs. x 5

225 lbs. x 3

275 lbs. x 2

315 lbs. x 5 (first working set)

Wrap-Up

Give this warm-up a try before your next squat session. It will keep you feeling good, injury-free, and it will improve your performance so you can continue to get stronger and squat those big weights.

Check back soon for Part Two on how to warm-up for the bench press!

Master the Fundamentals

Posted on by
4

A couple months ago, I happened to drop-in on a local college basketball game. I wasn’t planning on going, and I didn’t even know about the game, but I’ve always missed my days of playing competitive basketball so I decided to stop and watch. It turned out that I was about 30 minutes early and neither team had taken the court to go through their pregame warm-up routine. However, as I was arriving, the home team was running out onto the court to shoot around and get some shots up. Since the away team was still in the locker room, the players on the home team made use of all four hoops that were available (the two main hoops and two side hoops). As I watched this, I noticed something very interesting. Only ONE player of at least ten that I saw on the court went over to a hoop and took shots inside of the foul line.

Huh?!

Almost every player ran out and began shooting three-pointers with maybe a few players taking shots a few steps inside of the three-point line. This was surprising to me not only because these were college-level players, but because this was such a blatant disregard for the fundamentals.

Back in high school, I became extremely committed to the game of basketball. I had always played many sports growing up, but during my freshman year, I decided that I wanted to focus all of my efforts on basketball. I loved the game and I wanted to play in college, so I became obsessive with my workouts. For most of high school, I wouldn’t feel right if I wasn’t working on my game every single day. In the off-season, I went through meticulous individual workouts to improve my skills. During the season, I would put myself through abbreviated versions of these workouts before or after practice, before games, or on off-days. I really enjoyed all the work that went into improving my game and I took a lot of pride in doing it. I like to joke that I almost preferred the off-season to the actual season because of this fact. The thing about my individual workouts, though, was that they were rooted in the fundamentals.

When I walked out onto the court with my basketball, I would always begin my workouts with form shooting. I’d start no more than one step out from the basket and shoot with only one hand, concentrating intently on proper mechanics. I would gradually work my way out farther from the basket, but I’d have to make AT LEAST twenty-five shots within the paint (inside of the foul-line) before I moved on in my workout. Sometimes I would force myself to make fifty shots and sometimes even more if I was struggling with my shot.

JJ Redick was my idol

After that, I would go through a rigorous routine of dexterity and ball-handling drills. During the first part of these drills, the ball wouldn’t even hit the floor, as there was no dribbling involved. Then I would progress to dribbling with one ball and then with two balls. As you can see, all of these drills would always progress from simple and relatively easy to difficult and more complex.

The same thing goes when it comes to strength training. You should ALWAYS begin your workout by performing an adequate number of warm-up sets of the first exercise, or main lift, in your training session for that particular day. The purpose of this is to “groove” proper technique and to prepare your body for the heavier weights that it will be lifting so that the risk of injury is decreased. It is important, however, to choose the appropriate number of sets, reps, and weight for your warm-up sets, as they are not intended to tire you out before you begin your actual working sets. It is good to come into your workout having an idea of roughly what weight you’ll be using for the first working set of your first exercise. This not only allows you to select your warm-up weights accordingly, but also gives you the opportunity to use these warm-up weights as indicators of how you’re feeling that given day. If the iron is flying up or if gravity seems to hate you that day, you can adjust the weight for your working sets accordingly.

Typically, a strength training workout will begin with a big, compound movement like the squat, deadlift, or bench press. Let’s say you’re squatting today and you plan on starting your working sets at 225 lbs. When it comes to the squat and the bench press, I always begin with AT LEAST two sets with just the bar. Obviously, this can’t be done with the deadlift, because the height of the bar would be way off. I know for a fact that some people, like strength coach Mark Rippetoe, begin their squat workouts with four sets with the empty bar. So, with your first working set planned at 225 lbs., your warm-up sets might look something like this:

Bar x 5

Bar x 5

95 x 5

135 x 5

185 x 3

205 x 1

I don’t like to go above five reps with my warm-up sets because I feel that this number really allows me to hone-in on my technique while keeping it tight. Furthermore, it keeps fatigue to a minimum, as I don’t want my muscles to get too tired before my working sets.

This better not be your first ”warm-up” set

Practicing and mastering the fundamentals is what allowed me to play college basketball in arguably the best Division 2 basketball conference in the country. I wasn’t the most gifted or most athletic player around, but I never lost sight of the fundamentals and they were always a part of my workouts. I took a great deal of pride in being more fundamentally sound than any other player I knew, and while I was playing, I would’ve put my fundamental skills up against any other college player in the country, regardless of level. The bottom line is that the fundamentals will get you places. If you’re not fundamentally sound in what you do, it’s only a matter of time before it catches up with you. To get stronger in the gym, the fundamentals are a must; you need to practice and perfect your technique through a proper warm-up. Not performing warm-up sets in the weight room is like running out on the court and shooting three’s: you’re doing yourself more harm than good. Constantly practice and strive to master the requisite fundamentals of what you’re doing, whether it’s playing basketball, lifting weights, or accounting (yuck), and you will almost certainly find success.