Your training session is only as good as your warm-up. A great, efficient warm-up can make a huge difference in how your training session will go.
So in this video I’m going to give you three exercises you should do before you squat for optimal performance.
Release Calves
A deep and proper squat starts at the ankles.
A deep squat is largely based on the mobility of our ankles, and how far we can get our knees over our toes, so its important that we have sufficient ankle dorsiflexion.
And the dorsiflexion of our ankles can be very much restricted if our calves are tight. The calves are a muscle that’s used a lot in everyday life so they’ll tend to get tight.
So one way that we can mobilize our ankles before squatting is by rolling out our calves on a lacrosse ball, foam roller, or a kettlebell and try to get them to loosen a little bit.
We’ll spend maybe a minute or two on each side, finding the spots that are tight and digging in a little bit. After this you’ll find that you’ll be able to drive your knees much further past your toes.
Squat With Press Out
To get fully prepared to squat, we can spend some time getting comfortable in a deep squat position before we get under the bar.
This movement is going to be a great way to continue to mobilize our ankles, while also opening up our hips and getting our core nice and warm.
So we’re going to grab a plate and sit down into a deep squat with our elbows on our knees.
While sitting in this position we can start driving our knees over our toes a little bit and just getting comfortable in this position.
Then, we’re going to take that weight and press it out in front of us from this squat position. The further that weight gets from your center line, the more your core will have to turn on to keep stable.
This will serve as a great core warmup for when you get under a bar for a heavy back squat or front squat.
Pause Squat
Similar to the last exercise, we’re going to be spending an extended period of time under tension at the bottom of the squat position.
You can work this into your squat warm up sets.
What we’re going to do is squat normally, but spend an extra couple seconds paused in the bottom position.
As we’re spending this extra time under tension in a deep squat, we’re going to be getting our full body nice and warm and we’re also going to be greatly improving our squat technique and our stability.
All three of these exercises should take you less than 15 minutes or so, and then you’ll be primed for maximum squat performance.
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