The Best Warm-Up

Quick, what should you do to warm up before working out?

10 minutes on the bike? NOPE
A few arm swings, leg circles, and jumping jacks? NOPE
A warm up set of 50% of the weight you're gonna use for your first set? NOPE

The best warm-up you can possibly do is one that

- elevates core body temperature
- elevates cardiorespiratory rate (ie. heart rate, breathing, etc)
- increase ROM in all joints, planes of movement
- relaxes, stretches tight muscles, activates dormant muscles (ie. glutes)
- prepare neuro-muscular system for proper recruitment of movement patterns

Crossfit Journal has a better warm-up than the aforementioned warm ups that most people do at commercial gym settings. The Crossfit warm-up consists of (Samson stretch, overhead squat, sit-up, back extension, dip)

But I think we can do better, for the majority of us, there is much more mobilization work and activation drills we need to do before we do any of those movements. We need to make sure every joint is mobilized and has increased range of motion, as well as recruit the muscles that we are going to use in our workout. Most of us have tight hip flexors and don't know how to fully fire our glutes. Therefore, it's imperative that we fix both those issues in our warm-up. Do the following general warm up and you'll feel better during your work out and in the long run

8-10 minutes of full body soft tissue work (foam roller, lacrosse ball)

Dynamic Warm-Up/Mobilization

3 rounds of:
ankle mobility
10 x leg swings
hip flexor stretch
Cook hip lift
5 x split squats, 5 x lateral squats, 5 x rotational squats
10 x wall slides
Big X band

After the dynamic warm-up, practice a few reps of all the movements that you are going to do in your particular work out.

Hopefully I've shed some light on the topic. So the next time you are confused on how to warm up, use this as a template.