full body warmup

Full Body Warmup – prepare your glutes and core to work!

This full body warmup is a little over ten minutes long and it will activate your glutes and your core, and you know what that means?  That prevents knee and back pain!

Your glutes need to be activated before you squat.  From personal experience I know that I also need my quadriceps to be stretched and activated as well.  This warmup includes both of these stretches and activations.

Stretching and dynamic movement

We’ll start with some gentle stretching to warn the body that we are about to get moving, then head into our core and glute activation movements.  We’ll pick up speed with dynamic squats and lunges before heading into some jumping jacks (low impact modification is provided) to get our feet and ankles warmed up and to prepare for any metabolic conditioning (cardio) that we might be doing.

A Full Body Warmup wouldn’t be complete if we ignored our upper body, so I work in a little shoulder burn with a mini band.  If you don’t have a mini band, just hold your arms out straight, retract your scapula (shoulder blades) and mimic my movements in the video.

I do highly recommend you get a set of mini bands…they are so useful!!  I use them a lot in my workouts, and they are only $12 for a set of 5. Go for it!  They are fantastic for hip bridges, squats, hamstring work, and shoulder work.  It’s also a great way to get an afterburn after you finish doing your main strength workout.  (Here is the link to my Home Gym Essentials if you want to see more options!)

Bookmark this page and refer back to it before doing any of my workouts!   Don’t be afraid to add some of your favorite stretches to this routine as well…make this warmup your own!