Why Warming Up Is Crucial

The warm up is an essential part of any training session for two main reasons. The first being that it will help prevent injuries occurring in the session itself. The warm up, when done effectively, will help prepare the body to be able to perform challenging levels of output, without this preparation the challenge placed on the body can risk injury.

Secondly, warm ups can have very positive effects on performance during the training session. Through warming up correctly, we are able to perform better in our training sessions and get more out of them. Jumping straight into heavy weights will mean the body is unable to contract efficiently and therefore not perform to the best of its ability.

Warming Up For Specific Movement Patterns

When warming up, whether it is for the upper body or the lower body, it is important to be more precise about which movement pattern you are warming up. In upper body training there are four different movement patterns, horizontal pressing and pulling, and vertical pressing and pulling. These are all upper body movements but will require very different warm up exercises. Warming up for a bent over row (horizontal pull) will be different to warming up for a DB bench press( horizontal press). This is why below I have split the warm up exercises into their movement patterns below.

Integrating Mobility Exercises Into Warm Ups

Mobility can be difficult to progress, especially because it is not the funnest task to perform and often takes a great deal of time too see visible progress. This means that trying to improve mobility in the warm up can be an excellent way to improve mobility over time. This really depends on the individual and where they lack mobility, for example if an individual lacks thoracic mobility they may want to add a thoracic mobility exercise into their warm up protocol.

Movement Specific Warm Ups and Movement Pattern Specific Warm Ups

When warming up for an exercises, I like to perform two types of exercises in the warm up to be ready for difficult sets. Firstly I perform a movement pattern specific warm up exercise and then I perform a movement specific exercise. For example, if I am warming up for a weighted pull up I would often perform an exercise like an active hang or scap pull up variation (as seen in the list) and then I would perform a regression of a pull up, like an eccentric pull up. Finally I would add in a core variation for the purposes of warming up the full body and increasing body temperature. I have outlined this sample warm up below. It is important to understand that the exercises in this list are movement pattern specific exercises but not movement specific.

Try These 10 Warm Up Exercises for Your Upper Body

Horizontal Pressing Warm Ups

Vertical Pressing Warm Ups

Vertical Pulling Warm Ups

Horizontal Pulling Warm Ups