How to warm up your hips before squatting

Why your hips feel stuck first thing

Most of us sit for eight or nine hours a day, then head to the garage and expect our hips to open up like they haven't just spent all day folded at 90 degrees. They can't. The muscles around the joint go a bit lazy and tight at the same time, which is a fun combo when you're about to load a squat.

This isn't about being unfit. It's just what sitting does. A few minutes of targeted movement before you squat wakes the joint up and gets your hips actually working instead of your lower back taking over.

The warm-up, five minutes and done

You don't need a foam roller collection or twenty minutes of yoga. Run through these in order, no rest needed between them, and go straight into your squats after.

• 90/90 hip switch, 8 slow reps each side, to get rotation moving
• Standing hip CARs, 5 slow circles each leg, full range, no rushing
• Banded psoas march, 10 per side, to fire up the hip flexors
• Supported deep squat hold, 30 to 45 seconds, just sitting in the bottom
• Bodyweight squats, 2 sets of 10, empty and controlled, before you touch weight

If your hips are always tight, not just in the morning

Some guys aren't just stiff before training, they're stiff all the time, and that usually points to hip flexors that never fully relax because you're sitting most of the day. A couch stretch or kneeling hip flexor stretch a few times a week, outside of your squat sessions, does more for that than any warm-up ever will.

Think of the five-minute routine above as the daily switch-flip and the stretches as the actual fix for why the switch is hard to flip in the first place.

What to skip

Long static stretches right before you squat heavy aren't doing you any favors. Holding a deep stretch for two minutes can actually make the muscle a bit weaker for a short window afterward, which is the opposite of what you want before loading a bar. Save the long holds for after your workout or a separate mobility session.

Also skip the temptation to just do a couple of bodyweight squats and call it a warm-up. That tells you your hips feel okay, it doesn't actually open anything up. The band and CARs work do the real job.

Working it into your actual training day

If you're following something like the 3-Day Dad Strength Split or the Weekend Warrior routine, just tack this five minutes onto the front of any squat day. It's short enough that there's no excuse to skip it, even if you're squeezing training into a lunch break.

Once it's part of the routine you stop thinking about it. Same as brushing your teeth, it just happens before the bar comes out.

Common questions

More from the blog