Getting your body ready for the activity you are about to perform is of utmost importance. If you go into an activity “cold”, typically performance goes down and injury risk goes up! Looking for the absolute best dynamic warmup before your workout? Look no further! In this article, we have got you covered. We touch on the best warm ups for squats, general exercise, and even golf!

World’s Greatest Stretch

Sample [P]rehab Fitness Program Exercise Video

This is our personal favorite to use before any activity and even to start the day! the worlds’ greatest stretch more than adequately loosens up my hips, gets my shoulders active, and most importantly gets my nervous system primed for whatever workout I’m going to throw at it! Follow this step-by-step guide to maximize your time mobilizing and opening up your hips! .

• Double Hip opener: try to keep your back leg as straight (extended) as possible to stretch the hip flexors. For the front hip, really drive your elbow down to open up the hips into flexion as much as possible.

 

• Groin stretch: drive your knee OUT to try and open up your groin (inner thigh). Not shown, but hold the knee out position for a few seconds, and repeat a couple times before moving onto the next step.

 

• Thoracic spine rotation via the shoulder: you should be ACTIVE throughout each movement and thoracic spine rotation is no different. Build tension in the shoulder girdle and use your down arm to protract your scapula and rotate your torso.

 

• Posterior capsule hip mobilization: push your body back using your shoulder (notice you’re getting a nice active shoulder warm up, too) in a posterior-diagonal direction. Imagine pushing your femur through your hip. You should feel a nice stretch/mobilization in the posterior hip here.

 

• Hamstring stretch: nothing fancy here. Try and keep your knee as straight as possible. If it’s tight like mine, you won’t be going anywhere.

 

• Sciatic nerve mobility: this is my modification to the world’s greatest stretch and my favorite part of the routine. To facilitate the movement, use your SHOULDERS. In this way, you’re working on mobilizing into the overhead shoulder position actively using your muscles. Furthermore, in the downward dog position, you’re in a sciatic nerve tensioned position. If you feel an intense stretch anywhere from your butt to your calf, you’re really feeling your sciatic nerve more so than your hamstrings or your calf. And by working into and out of the point when you feel tension down your leg, you’re getting a perfect nerve mobility warm-up! After 5 reps on one leg, switch to the other side!

 

• As with anything, follow up this stretching with a dynamic warmup specifically tailored to your movement!

 

The [P]rehab Fitness Program: Warm-Ups, Planned Programming, Education, and More!

It is time to take the guesswork out of your exercise programming. Our [P]Rehab Fitness Program is packed with educational resources, creative programming, and all the tools you need to take your fitness to heights you never thought were possible. Get started with us today!

 

Hitting The Courts For Pickup Or Just Getting In A Workout? Try This 5 Minute Warm Up!

 

The Best Dynamic Warm Up For Your Hips

Looking for the best dynamic warmup for hip mobility? This is a warm up that I utilize every day before I lift. The main reason why I love this mobility warm-up is that you get more bang for your buck!  It takes me just a few minutes to do a couple of passes per side (the video is sped up), and by the end I feel loose and my heart rate’s up without doing any running at all.  I try and target the hip extensors of the front leg on the first deep static lunge target. I also have extremely tight hip adductors, so I like to use my arm to push my hip into a little bit of abduction to get a further stretch.

READ: 4 Exercise to Improve Hip Mobility

Next, I add thoracic rotation to both sides to increase T-spine mobility. My T-spine is also extremely stiff so I almost always get a cavitation (pop) of some sort. After, I push back and straighten out my front leg to get a stretch of the hamstrings. NOTICE I keep my foot POINTED DOWN, no need to put any excessive neural tension on your sciatic nerve in this position. Then come’s a little lumbar rotation to improve lumbar and lower thoracic mobility – again I’m stiff and usually will get another cavitation here. On the next static lunge, I now try to focus more on my hip flexors (of the back leg) by maintaining a posterior pelvic tilt. Then, I go into pigeon pose to hit the hip external rotators and abductors like the piriformis, TFL, and glutes.

 

Follow Along This Dynamic Warmup Mobility Flow!

Here is a very easy exercise to mimic mobility flow that we have found to be efficient at keeping a majority of your body parts mobile. To perform this: Walk your arms to a downward facing dog, where you will rotate your body pushing your heel down towards the floor one leg at a time, this will mobilize the posterior aspect of each leg. Lunge one leg into a Runner’s Lunge position and attempt to bring both elbows toward the floor, stretching your hip into flexion. Straighten the elbow of the side being stretched and rotate your torso towards the opposite side. Make sure to keep the loaded arm against your leg. This will emphasize a groin stretch in addition to mobilizing your thoracic spine.

Rotate your torso towards the leg in front. Push back into a hamstring stretch. Try to keep a relatively neutral spine, you can see Arash’s low back round a bit here! Lunge into a hip flexor stretch keeping your arms raised. This will allow you to maintain your trunk upright. Move back into a downward dog and repeat on the opposite side! Attempt to combine these movements in the most fluid way possible, allowing a smooth transition from one movement to the next. Hence the word FLOW. Typically each position should be held for a full inhale and a slow exhale around 5-10 seconds. Note: Feel free to add a pad under the knee to avoid any irritation.

 

The Prehab membership is the anti-barrier solution to keeping your body healthy. Access state-of-the-art physical therapy, fitness programs, and workouts online in the comforts of your own home or gym! Taking control of your health with exercise & education from the palm of your hand has never been easier. Get access to 50+ programs, 100+ unique workouts, and 3000+ exercises to build your own workout routines. Trial it for free, and learn how to get out of pain, avoid injury, and optimize your health with [P]rehab!

 

The Best Dynamic Warm Up For Squats

What is the best dynamic warmup for squats? That is a loaded question we have received hundreds of times. So, to answer your question, we put together some of our favorite moves to improve your squat mobility! This dynamic warm-up also includes the world’s greatest stretch❗️ What is that⁉️ Watch the whole video to find out! In this post, you’ll find movements that help to improve…

✅Big toe mobility

✅Ankle mobility

✅Knee Mobility

✅Hip mobility

✅Lumbar mobility

✅Thoracic mobility

✅Breath Control in the deep squat

What more can you ask for⁉️ Parameters📝 There is no hard rule, but we recommend at least 5 rounds of each movement. You can spend more or less time depending on if you feel like you need more time, or if your workout time is limited. Tag a friend, coworker, classmate, or workout partner that NEEDS this warmup. More importantly, tag us in your IG story doing this‼️

LISTEN: SQUATS, BACK ROUNDING, AND BUTT WINKING WITH SQUAT UNIVERSITY

 

The Best Dynamic Warmup Before Golf

“Feel is the most perplexing part of golf, and probably the most important.” – Arnold Palmer Preparing for a round of golf is about getting your mind and body right for that ‘feel’. Golf is a mental game because it stresses the central nervous system. That feel, touch, and stroke you’re striving for over and over is mentally exhausting. By hitting the driving range, putting green, or chipping balls, you’re priming the nervous system for that ‘feel’. Just like any sport, you’re strengthening the neural synapses of the action you’re performing over and over again, for better (straight shot), or worse (slicing over and over).

These days I’m lucky to golf, let alone get to the driving range prior to a round. But, I do know performing a warm-up can help prime the nervous system. Doing so will allow my body to gain that ‘feel’, and control that ‘touch’. A pre-round dynamic warm-up routine promotes the body to activate muscles to control motions to smoothly swing the club. Here is a quick routine I’ve put together of 9 movements to perform prior to a round. That means if you perform each movement for 45s (including both sides of 4 of the movements) SLOW AND CONTROLLED you can warm up in under 10 minutes!

 

Learn The Best Warm Up Before Deadlifting!

 

Closing Thoughts

The general takeaway of this article is to move in any way you can before your workout! Make it specific to the movements you will be performing, whether it be a specific sport, lift, or other activity! Setting yourself up before an activity with a warmup routine will help you succeed even more than you are currently! Find the best dynamic warmup before your exercise for YOU, and stick with it!

 

Take Control of Your Body For Life

Fitness is not about using such a high intensity that you are unable to get off the floor afterward. We are all about hard work, however, we want to make sure you are able to workout across the lifespan both safely and effectively. The number one reason why people no longer participate in an exercise program is due to injury, let’s prove that statistic incorrect by using a fitness program with the intended goals of getting you in shape while avoiding injury! To do so, the first 4 weeks are meant to load your tissues to create a movement base this ready to take on the next 8 weeks. Let’s also make sure that we are not just addressing the physical you but are helping you become healthier by giving you methods to decrease your internal load via positive self-talk and gratitude practices.

 

About The Author

Michael Lau, PT, DPT, CSCS

[P]rehab Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer

Michael was born and raised in Northern California but now currently resides in Sunny SoCal ever since attending the University of California, Los Angeles as an undergraduate majoring in physiology. After his undergraduate studies, he received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from cross-town rival the University of Southern California. As a licensed physical therapist with a strong background in strength and conditioning, Michael likes to blend the realms of strength training and rehabilitation to provide prehab, or preventative rehabilitation, to his patients. A common human behavior is to address problems after they become an issue and far often too late, which is a reactionary approach. He believes the key to improved health care is education and awareness. This proactive approach-prehab-can reduce the risk of injuries and pain in the first place. He is a huge proponent of movement education and pain science. Clinically, he has a special interest in ACLR rehab and return to sport for the lower extremity athlete.

 

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer – The content here is designed for information & education purposes only and is not intended for medical advice.