Functional Warm Up

4 Phases to Prep Your Body for Squatting

Do you have knee pain while squatting? The first thing you need to reduce this pain is to make sure you warm up effectively.

These 4 phases of a functional warm up will progressively prep your body for squatting and can significantly reduce your knee pain while squatting.

Functional Warm Up Phase #1 get the blood flowing

The first phase of a functional warm up is to get your heart pumping and your blood flowing. This ensures that your body is ready to deliver oxygen and other nutrients to your muscles while you squat. It also gives your body the opportunity to transition to different energy producing systems in order to make energy for more vigorous activity like squatting.

My favorite way to get the blood flowing yet put minimal stress on the knees is biking. When I treat patients with knee pain, biking is one of the most common forms of exercise I recommend as they heal. This is because biking takes the knees through a large range of motion allowing for joint lubrication and increased blood flow, but it puts minimal stress on the knees because you are not standing.

In your functional warm up, your time increasing blood flow doesn’t need to be long. I recommend 5-10 minutes, but choose a length that feels right for your body.

Functional warm up phase #2 Lengthen the Muscles

The second phase of a functional warm up is to lengthen the muscles. When you squat, you change the length of your muscles especially in your lower body. Lengthening/stretching your muscles prior to squatting allows your muscles to move into and out of these new lengths easier. And this reduces injury risk.

During your functional warm up, you don’t need to hold the stretches for a long time. This is because the goal is to simply take them through a larger range and prepare for the squat. Your goal during your warm up is not to change your muscle tissue length.

If you want to increase flexibility/gain muscles length, you’ll want to do more stretching after your workout with longer holds.

This is why I recommend a dynamic warm up prior to squatting. It moves your muscles through a larger range while keeping your body upright and your blood flowing. Make sure you stretch your hamstrings, quads, glutes, calves, and hip adductors during your dynamic warm up. Follow me on Instagram for dynamic warm up demonstrations.

Functional warm up phase #3 Move the joints

The third phase of the functional warm up is to move the joints. Stretching before squatting is probably not new to you. But your joints also need to be ready to move through the ranges necessary for squatting. If your joints don’t move like they need to, your body will find movement somewhere else in order to do the squat you are asking it to do. And this can lead to injury. For example, if your ankles don’t bend when you squat, you may let the knees cave in to get deeper into your squat and this can lead to knee pain.

Below lists the main joints that need to be ready to move for the squat as well an exercise to move the joints prior to squatting.

1. The ankles must bend – perform repeated ankle bends in kneeling.
2. The thoracic (upper back) spine must extend – perform a cobra with your hands above your shoulders.
3. The hips must bend, rotate, and extend – perform single knee to chest, seated hip rotations, and repeated hip extension in kneeling.

For a demonstration of each exercise, head to my Instagram profile.

Functional warm up phase #4 Fire up the glute and core muscles

In my preview post I talked about the importance of strengthening the support muscles to reduce knee pain while squatting. I’ll share just how to do this in an upcoming post. But before you squat it’s important to get these supporting muscles “fired up” and ready to support you while squatting.

Your support muscles, the glute and core muscles, tend to be lazy. This is especially true if you don’t have experience teaching them to “turn on.” So it’s important that we isolate these muscles prior to squatting in order to ensure that they are doing their job while squatting.

If these muscles are not turning on while squatting, this can lead not only to knee pain but also to hip and spine pain. For example, if your glute muscles on the side of your hips are not controlling the alignment of your pelvis while you squat, this will put excess stress on the knees and can lead to knee pain.

Below lists the main support muscles that need to be fired up for the squat as well an exercise to fire up each muscle group prior to squatting.

1. The inner abs – perform abdominal bracing and toe taps laying on your back.
2. Back glutes – perform bridges squeezing your butt tight at the top.
3. Side glutes – perform side steps with a band on your feet.

For a demonstration of each exercise, head to my Instagram

(Follow me for more supporting muscle exercise tips!)

Hate Squatting? Use these phases for any workout!

If walking, running, yoga, Pilates, HIIT, or other strength exercises are more your jam, don’t worry. These 4 phases will prep your body for all of these forms of exercise and can significantly reduce any knee pain you experience during exercise.

Wondering which stretching, mobility, and glut/core firing exercises you need for your form of exercise? I’d love to give you some guidance! Comment below or reach out to me on Instagram.