A regular warm up mobility routine is essential to get the best out of your weight training.
The routine in the video below includes all the major areas in weight training that can easily get tight from hours of sitting down, or repetitive movements like running. Areas such as hips, hamstrings, calves, shoulders, chest.
Each movement flows into the next, allowing you to work on balance, coordination and smoothness of movement as well as mobility.
Mobility for weightlifting
Dynamic stretching is recognised as the most effective way to mobilise for weight training in your warm up. This is moving into and out of a position smoothly without holding for too long.
This mobility for weightlifting routine is influenced by yoga, martial arts, movement training – it’s a mashup of my favourite exercises.
Unlike yoga, we are not holding for long in any of these positions, but moving smoothly into and out of them.
I perform this routine both as a warm up and as a movement mediation, when I want to move my body to loosen up but not lift weights.
We also do this as part of our warm up in the Ladies Who Lift class.
The routine in full is below:
- Walk hands down to floor keeping legs straight
- Lower to floor in plank position
- Push hips into floor and stretch up
- Downward dog position
- Foot on outside of hand
- Drop hips down
- Use elbow to push knee outwards
- Lift arm up and look at ceiling
- Back into downward dog
- Repeat sequence on other side
- Walk hands back keeping legs straight
- Repeat as many times as you like (we usually do it 4 times)
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How to stop falling over in a deep squat position
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