Warming up before weight training is something that can help reduce muscle soreness the next day and
also help to prepare your body for gym exercises, thus keeping your safe in the long term. Having joints
moving better and muscles fired up and ready to go can help prepare you for the exercises to follow. A
good warm up should also get your nervous system engaged so that your awareness of your technique
and ofrm is dialled in before lifting weights. Good technique and having your muscles ready for exercise
are essential for an effective and safe gym workout. Lifting weight with poor technique because you are
stiff or not fully activated will lead to more problems than if you never had worked out.
So with this in mind it is important to prepare your body correctly for the exercises you will do. Here
is a list of exercises to do before you exercise to make sure your body is ready for the work ahead.
1. Squat Openers
This is a great exercise to get you moving at the hips and also helps to pre-activate the glutes
and core muscles. Using the BackAware Belt you can really dial in your nervous system and
make sure you are keeping your spine in a good position which will help you for the the exercises
with weight to come. Check the video to see the key steps with this exercise.
2. Shoulder Abduction
The stabiliser and postural muscles can be often ignored in gym routines. There is a general
tendency to over do certain type of exercises, such as push ups or bench press. Adding this
exercise and other pull type exercises can really help counterbalance these other exercises
mentioned and allow you to maintain good posture while still building muscle in the desired areas.
3. Inchworm
This is a great all rounder exercises. First it stretches the hamstrings while also working the
core and arms.
Here is how it is done:
First pushing your hips back as far as they will go then drop your hands to the ground.
Walk your hands out until they are directly underneath your shoulders
Use your BackAware Belt to make sure your spine stays in a neutral spine and doesn’t arch down.
Here depending on your level you can either hold this position for 5 seconds, tap your right
shoulder with your left hand and then vice-versa or rotate onto our side.
Walk your hands back in towards your feet until you are back in the original position.
4. Bird-Dog/Superman
This is a great exercise to get your core engaged and for getting dialled into a neutral spine. This
helps you become aware of your spinal position and also gets the muscles engaged. Again I use
the BackAware Belt to make sure as I lift my arm and leg that my spine stays in the same
position. Key fault you will see here is that people lift their leg too high. For greater difficulty
crawl forward and backward for 3 x 10 seconds before your workout.
Adding these 4 exercises into your gym or exercise routine will really prepare you for the workout
ahead and will strength and activate they key joints and muscles to be uses in a good gym routine.
