How do I make the perfect warm-up before a squat?

What you should not expect from this article is a ready-made explanation of “a” warm-up that you “really have to do” because “athlete x” also does this before he won hundreds of medals at “x games” and brought all his “successful” clients to a higher level. What you can expect is a solid article arguing the choices you can make to warm up that suits you or your client.

I made videos for all the tests and exercises so that, in addition to a clear explanation, you also have an image. An additional benefit of reading and then implementing is that you get information about your client that is valuable for success!

Let's dive into.. Let's start at the beginning!

What does a warm-up have to meet?

Just a few steps back. When we move, our body uses different structures to do that, the best known is muscle mass that provides contraction to get passive structures moving. In addition, bones and tendons act as levers and pulleys, they ensure that the kinetic energy that stimulate the muscles is converted into movement.

Our heart and lung system, aka the cardiovascular system, works like the engine. This system provides (new) fuel in the form of ATP (Adenosine triphosphate). You can compare the warm-up to starting your car in the winter. The windows are frozen, the engine is cold and the tires are rock hard (tendons/bones/muscles). You can start and drive off, but you know that this will make the entire car wear out much harder and will not improve performance. You'd rather let the engine run for a while, cardiovascular system, and drive off slowly before you go full speed across the highway.

So how do we deal wisely with our Ferrari.

The warm-up consists of 2 phases:

General

In the general warm-up, we want to lubricate the joints (synovial fluid free up) and the sympathetic nervous system activate to make energy available. This sounds very complicated, but it comes down to the fact that we need a movement or combination of movements that move across both the hips and shoulders. Nothing crazy, no mega big moves, just movement. In addition, we want a aerobic incentive to get the engine (heart/lung) started. We do this to the point where you sweat slightly, blush on your cheeks and start breathing faster. That's it.

5-10 minutes is more than enough.
You can choose between: running, airbike/assault bike, rowing or movement drills.

Make sure you can build up the movement or choose a few movements that you can build up in intensity.

In short, don't start with jumping rope, burpees or sprints. Exceptions are mega fit athletes, but for them, these movements are extremely light. This does not apply to your average office worker or neighbor.

The goal here is to help you sympathetic nervous system to activate. This system provides “all the good stuff” to start training, after which we want to switch back to our parasympathetic system to recover.

Specific

The word says it all: SPECIFIC. This is the time when you should start thinking anyway. Now it's going to be fun!

Without kidding, I can't tell what the perfect warm-up is for you, because I don't know how you squat and what you're up against. This is essential to determine what to do in your warm-up. Even better, if you trainer You will need to be able to make several specific warm-ups because your athletes are different and so are the training sessions they will go through.

From this point on, you have two options: you can shoot and mobilize and activate at the points that are most important and where problems occur most frequently. The disadvantage of this approach is that you either A) are warming up much longer than necessary and/or B) missing something specific that is essential for you. So I recommend the second approach, I would be a bad coach if I didn't, and that is to analyze your squat to determine what you need from there.

Squat pattern analysis

The question you want to ask yourself is: “What is stopping me from reaching depth with a neutral position and at ideal hip and knee angles to provide strength from there that will make me move directly upward?”

What we need is a video analysis of the squat (side/front). You want to use the images to determine whether you see:

— Will the bar stay above the middle of my foot throughout the lift?
— Do I maintain a neutral position in my lower back throughout the lift?
— Do I have an effective distribution between the angles in my hip and knee?

This last point is individual and has to do with anthropometry. Someone with longer thighs versus a short torso looks very differently in a squat than the other way around (see figure 1).

If either of those two fails:

— My knee can't go far forward, so I fall forward. Check ankle mobility. You can find the test in this video:

— My back doesn't stay neutral, I have a buttwink. Check hip structure and torso tension. Test squat depth:

Test hull voltage:

— My upper back bulges extremely during the squat. Check trunk tension, latissimus tension. Recognize lattisimus tension in the squat:

This is how you test torso stiffness:

— I tend to lean more to one side

The latter may be a technical problem, but it is often more complicated and goes beyond what I want to cover in this article.

With the above analysis, you can already overcome an enormous amount. Of course, this does not fall under the heading 'perfect', but that requires more tools to analyse. I also think this is too profound for this article and not necessary to warm up very effectively.

If you do want a complete analysis of your squat pattern, you can make an appointment with me (Wouter) to book a technique session. I will then make a complete analysis of your squat in 2 hours and optionally I will also write a program for you. For more information and if you want to make an appointment, then click here.

Based on the analysis above, you know something about the ankle, hip, lower back (lumbar) and upper back (thoracic). Don't be afraid to experiment with foot position, knee position, bar position on the back, and hand position on the bar.

Never settle for consensus in:

— Neutral position of the lower back throughout the lift.
— Bar above your midfoot throughout the lift.
— Contact with the entire foot on the floor.
— No shift to the left or to the right.

Mobilize and activate

The specific part of the warm-up consists of two subparts, both of which aim to find a better position and provide strength from there. Mobilizing is about creating more space in and around joints such as the ankle, hip, upper back and shoulder. These are the places where we just want to create space to get into position. This stems from the 'joint by joint' principle (Figure 3). In the squat, we want ankle mobility, knee stability, hip mobility, lower back stability, upper back mobility, and neck stability. If you miss a step somewhere, a link further down the chain should compensate for it. A stiff upper back causes unstable/more movement in the neck or lower back. So in addition to mobilizing, we also want to look at 'activating', which means creating tension for stability in the chain.

We'll go from bottom to top of the joints and I'll give you a lot of exercises to improve mobility and stability! These exercises are not sacred, I can write down many more. What is particularly important is the effect of the exercise. When you come up with an intervention, also test whether it actually leads to an improvement in the squat pattern. On our YouTube page you will find many more videos of exercises that you can use in your warm-up.

Single

Your ankle mobility determines how much you can move your knee forward during the squat. Squat problems due to ankle mobility are more common than you might think, so I recommend that you include the test in your analysis. He is fast and clear. Restriction in the ankle can cause a double-clapped squat or a restriction on one of the two ankles can make you rotate in the squat.

You can overcome an ankle limitation by raising your heel, or wearing lifters. However, this also changes the mechanics of the squat by moving the accent more to the knee and less to the hip. This is not ideal for everyone (read previously mentioned anthropometry).

Here is the 5 inch wall test to test your ankle mobility. This video also includes a mobility exercise and a stretch to improve ankle mobility.

RNT Split Squat — a great exercise to warm up the squat pattern and mobilize the ankle while activating the hip.

Knee and hip

We want the knee to stabilize and only stretch and bend while the hip provides tension to keep that knee in position while also stretching and flexing. MAN! that's complicated.

Remember that the hip is a socket, which makes it ideal for “rolling” and “twisting” in addition to stretching and bending. The knee, on the other hand, is a hinge joint, ideal for stretching and flexing. So what we want is to maximize the quality of each joint.

Knee valgization is a common pattern where we see more movement in the knee because the hip does not do enough. In this video, I answer the question why we want to activate the hips and how we can do that.

Below are two more nice drills to activate the hips!

RNT BW Squat

Lateral band walks (addition/tip: place the elastic band in the middle of your foot)

Squat iso holds

Back and hip extensions — less specific to the squat, but perfect for the hips. Personally, I'm more of a fan of asking for fewer repetitions with a long hold. For example, 4-6 reps with 6 seconds of holding in the top position.

Hull /core

In this video, I'll explain what a neutral position is and why torso tension is so valuable during big compound lifts like the squat.

Here is a list of exercises that I often use to learn and/or activate trunk stiffness:

Anti rotation chop — an exercise where we request torso stiffness while mobilizing the upper back. Perfect for the squat, completely in line with the joint by joint principle!

Stir the pot — a plank position with movement from the upper back. BINGO!

Anti extension press — create tension with your latissimus while increasing your torso stiffness. Ideal for learning how to keep the bar in position on the back while not running in the lower back.

Upper back

The upper back carries the bar during the squat and transfers the strength we develop in our lower body to the bar.

3 mobility exercises to make more space in the upper back (thoracic spine) and shoulders.

The latissimus dorsi plays an essential role in controlling the back bar. Too little tension can lead to a hollow lower back or turning to one side while squatting. In this video, I'll explain exactly what he does and give you coaching to optimize activation.

A set of pull movements is also ideal for starting your squat. Keep it simple.

Tripod row — combines tension in a neutral position with activating the upper back/latissimus. Make the break at the top longer (4 - 6 seconds) to emphasize the tension needed in the squat.

Latt Pulldown — classic. Here I would also work again with a 4-6 second iso hold.

Last comment

Make sure you pay specific attention to the areas where it is needed. If your ankles are enormously limited, you need a lot and more attention there, give it the attention it needs. But if you come to the conclusion that you see a good squat, keep it short and sweet. Then choose the larger exercises such as the goblet squat or the RNT split squat to make an effective warm-up that ensures that we can use all the focus and energy to perform in the training to come.

Summary

Despite the mountain of information, I am a fan of an efficient warm-up, but over the years I have learned to respect the warm-up. A targeted warm-up ensures that you will see an improvement in your squat pattern because your mobility and activity are better coordinated, so that you will find better positions. A better position = less compensation = less risk of injuries.

A good warm-up ensures that we can enjoy our beautiful Ferrari for a long time. Because although you may be able to buy a second Ferrari after a long time of saving, it won't work that way for your body. Just think about that!

Wouter Middelbos
MILO Performance and Education

PS I've been thinking long and hard about this article. As always, it has become taller than I originally planned, but there will always be points that you may have missed or have questions about. You can always email me at wouter@miloeducation.com, better yet, I'd love to hear from you!

Bonus

Video: How to fix sticking points in the squat

In this video, we'll go through the entire squat and I'll show you what to look for to come up with a plan to make your squat stronger.

Resources

Text:
Kinetic energy — https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetische_energie
Synovial fluid — https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoviale_vloeistof
Sympathetic Nervous System — https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthosympathisch_zenuwstelsel
Aerobic System — https://www.fitsociety.nl/aerobe-systeem/
'Joint by joint' principle — https://themovementfix.com/the-joint-by-joint-approach-to-human-function/