Scott Galton Asks from facebook : Hi Eli how do you go about warming up for your weight sessions esecially legs?

Scott....what a good question! i love questions.

warm ups are essential for a proper, fully challenging, leg routine. without the muscle being engorged with blood, the ligaments and tendons being a lil juicy and flexable, and balance reentered, hitting legs just wont be as fulfilling, meaning you will have a more difficult time activating all those muscle fibers to get full development.

first, i always start my routines fully covered, i have a comfortable and fitting warm sweater and training pants. the sweater is over usually an under armor type shirt that is breathable and does not get heavy with moisture from me sweating and i wear compression shorts to help keep pressure around my hips and upper thigh for protection of the joints, tendons and ligaments in that area as well as added strength for exploding out of the hole of many movements. then i will wear shorts over these so that if i decide i want to see how my quads are flexing when im training them i can. and on top of my shorts i will wear an under armor type training pants. i will also wear tight fitting socks and believe it or not i wear boots when i train quads and glutes. they give me a strong platform that doesnt bend or move if i accidently alter the pressure in my feet and also give me good ankle support, which is very important.

now the physical movement warm up....

a typical warm up for my quads, hams, glutes, and calves include the following...

5 minutes of light walking, then
5 minutes of bouncing around!
yup i will just bounce up and down and left to right and just shake my whole body, shake my arms, my hands, my feet, my ankles, my knees, my hips, i will get my heart rate up, this both feels good and gets circulation going everywhere. training legs is one of the most demanding body parts and is considered by me a whole body training session.

then i will open my feet up wide and point my toes out and, keeping my back straight will slowly bend over and let my upper back and neck relax with my arms hanging to warm up my spine and strech my lower back, get a little decompression going in my discs and loosen up my shoulders. i will slowly rock forward, backward, left and right like this for a few minutes, focusing on holding perfect balance throughout.

then i will stand straight up with perfect balance and centered, keeping my lower back relaxed and my abs slightly tight and twist only as far as is comfortable left and right, looking over my shoulder each time in the direction that i am turning to warm up my neck. this warms up the spine from another angle and loosens up the back.

then i will do arm circle stretching from the chest, through the shoulders and biceps all the way to my forearm and hands (by opening my palms up all the way)

after this i will sit in a full squat without weight, just resting, loosening up my knees and hips and will spend time visualizing what i will be doing throughout the workout and what my goals are and how i will feel when i am training, getting my mind and body ready for the intensity that it soon will be going through.

i will then do a light hamstring stretch

then i will stand straight and do leg circles, where i throw one leg at a time in the air and circle it up, down, left, and right, then the other leg, back and forth a couple times.

at this point i will begin with my 1st exercise and slowly work up to a challenging weight. at NO point during this warm up should you experience fatigue or strain, id you do, slow it down, and think about why. either you are pushing yourself too hard or you are deficient in nutrients or did not get enough sleep or are too stressed out!

you need to be in a perfect mindset and bodily condition before beginning an intense leg regiment, always. one little slip and BAM you could be out of the game for a while. besides, when you are less than optimum, so will your results be, it is better to wait until you are really ready.

and so to continue in between my warm up sets i will sit on my shins, leaning back, streching my quads, getting just a nice light tug in them, and will also do the squatting without weight maneuver. the entire time during the training i am staying consious and aware of how they feel, massaging them between sets, and visualizing what i am about to do and what i want.

then once i am about to do my first working set to a sense of fatigue and serious burn i rest around 5 - 10 minutes, and begin....then i go insane as f**k the rest of the workout until im done, the trick so to always demand more out of yourself and demand perfect form, and always doubt that you are dong it right and feeling it all the way so you can continually challenge and try to make it work better, because believe me, it can.

alright there you go!
any follow up questions?

thats the Blahut Builders general leg warm up to building some big diesal quads that can scare a squirrel with a single flex! lol

signing out ~
peace