Dynamic Warm-up: A 10 Minute Pre-Workout Routine for Women

It's important to perform a thorough warm-up before you start your training session. Warming up is integral, and if done properly can reduce your risk of injury and improve your performance.

A good dynamic warm-up is designed to:

• Increase your core temperature
• Increase blood flow to your muscles
• Increase muscle temperature for improved ability to stretch (extensibility)
• Improve posture and alignment
• Help with muscle activation/mind-muscle connection
• Prime your central nervous system for lifting heavy (or running fast, or jumping high)

A proper warm-up can be completed in about 10 minutes, and the benefits are worth it!

Below you'll find a video with 8 exercises you can do to ensure that you're entire body is thoroughly warmed up. You want to do 8-10 reps of each of these exercise (per side, where applicable):

• Hip Circles
• Fire Hydrants
• Birddog
• Half Kneeling Internal Rotation
• Glute Bridge
• Clamshell/Clam
• Shoulder Blade Retraction/Dynamic Blackburn
• Quadruped Extension/Rotation

Once you've completed this warm-up, you can add a few movement-specific exercises to your warm-up (i.e. if you're squatting that day, do some Bodyweight Squats, if you're Bench Pressing that day do some Push-ups).

You can also add some explosive movements into the mix. When you do this and what you choose is a whole article unto itself, but some examples would be:

• Lateral Hops
• Box Jumps
• Medicine Ball Throws

At that point, you're fully prepared to have a safe and effective workout. And if you need more guidance on the best training program to help you reach your goals, we can help.