How To Warm-Up For Squats Before The Bar | Powerlifting Tips For Beginners

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF WARMING UP FOR SQUATS?

The purpose of our warm-ups is both to get the blood flowing and activate or “wake up” our muscles to prepare for the main movements or focus for the day.

This should be relatively light weight; if we’re going based off of RPE’s, this should be somewhere between and RPE 2-5.

With your warm-ups, you don’t want this to be crossing the line into challenging “working set” weights, so be sure that you’re not going too heavy with the warm-up movements and also make sure that you’re not doing too much.

We can break our warm-ups into different sections:

• Foam rolling

• Light cardio

• Warm-up sets before the bar

• Warm-up sets on the bar

Today we’re primarily focusing on squat warm-up sets before the bar.

Because our warm-ups are meant to focus on what we want to activate, its a good idea to know what muscles we’re using when we squat!

WHICH MUSCLES DO WE NEED TO ACTIVATE FOR BENCH?

Most of what we’ll want to focus on for our squat warm-ups are our lower half, especially anything that we may struggle with activating during squats. Here’s what you may want to focus on:

• Quads

• Hamstrings

• Hip and glute complex

• Back

SQUAT WARM-UPS BEFORE THE BAR

Optional: 5-10 minutes of light walking or bike

Optional: Foam roll any tight areas before squatting such as the hamstrings, quads, glutes, or back.

Activation movements (timestamps in video):

Down & back butt kicks with pull: 1:24

Active hip opener stretch: 1:37

High knees down and backs: 2:37

Banded side steps: 3:22

Banded squats: 4:42

Banded good mornings: 5:43

Banded glute bridges: 6:22

Hip airplanes: 6:44

Choose 3-6 different warm-up exercises and perform each for 1-2 sets of 10-20 reps. Our main focus isn’t necessarily how many sets or reps, instead, we want to just focus on activating and preparing our bodies for benching.

It should take about 10-15 minutes to complete these exercises.

CONCLUSION

Warming up for squats is important in preparing ourselves for heavy lifting. Don’t overcomplicate it and definitely don’t try to turn this into a workout. Warm-ups are relatively simple and don’t be afraid to experiment with which exercises help you to better activate and prepare for your heavy bench sessions!