How to warm up for weight training

How to warm up for weight training (as an endurance athlete) without compromising your workout.

It’s quite common for endurance athletes to combine strength and cardio, hence the perennial question “which should I do first?” The answer to that one is quite simple: whichever you want the greatest benefit from. This is also the reason why you need to be mindful about how you warm up for your strength and conditioning. There are two potentially competing pathways which will affect how (and how strongly) you respond to a workout.

The AMPK (AMP-activated protein kinase) pathway is great for endurance adaptations (enhanced mitochondrial function and aerobic capacity…) but can complete with the mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) pathway, which promotes muscle protein synthesis and hypertrophy. This means that if you activate the AMPK pathway with a long cardio warm up you won’t get as much benefit from your strength session. So while 20 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical might feel like a great way to warm up, it risks reducing your strength gains. You’ll still get adaptations but your body may focus on cardio adaptations.

To get the strongest response, endurance athletes need a warm-up tailored to the demands of lifting, not running or cycling.

The goal of your warm-up should be to:

• Increase blood flow to your muscles.

• Activate your central nervous system for explosive, but controlled movement.

• Prepare your body for the specific lifts ahead without triggering endurance pathways.

Rowing and skipping

My favourite way to begin my warm up for strength and conditioning is with 5 minutes on the rowing machine. This engages upper and lower body muscles, builds heat and mobility through dynamic movement and can be made explosive and powerful. 

If you don’t have access to a rowing machine 5 minutes of skipping works too. You can also jog on the spot, adding in some jumps or hops as your muscles warm up (nothing crazy!).

Dynamic, specific movements

Before you lift, spend a few minutes with dynamic mobility to loosen up your joints and prepare your muscles.

Good options are walking lunges (if you’re quite tight start with partial lunges and build into a deeper movement - don’t force anything), leg swings, hip bridges, arm circles, wall push ups, exaggerated walk with high knees, and butt kicks.

Movement-specific warm-up before each new lift

Before jumping into each exercise in your main set do movement-specific warm-up sets to prime your nervous system and groove the patterns of your lifts.

For example before a goblet squat do 5-8 air squats (with no weight). If you are working on max strength you might want to do a warm up set with a lighter weight beforehand. Make sure not to overdo the warm up, you are priming and rehearsing not building fatigue.

CNS Activation with Explosive Movements

If you are doing a max strength (heavy) session, you need your central nervous system firing on all cylinders. Add a short bout of explosive drills to wake it up such as box jumps, jump squats or plyometric pushups. These exercises train your body to recruit maximum force quickly—essential for lifts like squats, deadlifts, and cleans.

If you’re fine with caffeine take 2-3mg / kg of you 45 minutes before your session (so long as you don’t exceed 400mg / day).

Special consideration for prehab / rehab

Generally prehab and rehab should start on the easier side, and as you get stronger you can add weight to maintain the stimulus. So a warm up for early rehab could simply be dynamic movements and isometric holds (such as calf holds, wall sits etc).

Bonus warm down tips :)

I have a Spotify trip-hop playlist for my warm down, it helps me activate my parasympathetic nervous system - but slow deep breathing works too…

Gentle movement will help to clear metabolic byproducts, if you have a mobility routine, now is a good time to run through it. You can also hold static stretches (20-30 seconds, and they should feel good not painful). I like to follow this with some foam rolling. 

Increase muscle protein synthesis with a protein shake or high protein meal if it’s meal time. Pair your protein shake with some carbs - malt loaf, cookie, a couple of squares of dark chocolate - if not.

This should help kickstart the rebuild and recovery process making tomorrow’s run feel a bit less post-strength-heavy.

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