The Mobility Complex
Great Warm-Up, Great Workout
by Jeremy Frisch
Who really enjoys doing warm-ups? It can be hard enough to prepare mentally
for a grueling workout without worrying about getting your body geared
up for the task, too. Warm-ups are rarely fun and often tedious, but we
know they're extremely important. So since you have to do it anyway, why not get the most out of your warm-up?
No, no, no, and definitely no. In
our facility, we try to use a different warm-up each training day.
We've used some very interesting ones, but I have to say one of my
favorites is a mobility complex that my good friend Brian Grasso showed
me. The original version was a demanding ground-based,
total-body, multi-planar complex consisting of four movements done
continuously for 6-8 repetitions each. It promoted mobility of the
hips, thoracic spine, and anterior shoulders, while also improving
scapular stability. All this is achieved while developing the proper
motor patterns needed for the lifts ahead.
This isn't how we want to get prepared for lifting.

Grasso Complex
Overhead squat 1x8
Lateral lunge 1x8 each leg
Overhead reverse lunge 1x6 each leg
Sots press 1x8 I
loved this so much that I made sure my athletes used it once a week.
The athletes really felt that it prepped them for the upcoming lifting
and we saw some nice improvements in strength and mobility over the
course of training. What's great about this complex is that it
focuses on many of the weaknesses and trouble areas that most athletes
have. No matter what age or level they are, it can be tweaked enough to
make it very demanding, while still functioning as a thorough warm-up. Younger
athletes and beginners can perform the movements using just a wooden
dowel or a very light stick. Our female athletes usually use a light
Olympic training bar and our high school and college-level males use a
full Olympic bar.

The Next Step Like
many exercises and movements, once you perform them enough, they start
to become your own and the difficulty sometimes fades. Once this
happens, you either add weight or you add variations. However,
when dealing with mobility and warm-ups, you don't want to throw on
another 100 pounds when you could benefit from simply adding a movement
or variation that will make it new again. After a few months of the
original complex, I added a few variations and it does the job for
getting loose, mobile, and ready to lift.
Just remember, machines have no place in this warm-up.

Grasso-Smith Complex Like
in the previous complex, this is performed using an empty barbell. The
goals remain the same as the original, but by adding and adjusting a
few movements, it creates a longer and slightly more difficult warm-up.
Overhead squat 1x8
Low lateral squat 1x8 each side
Overhead reverse lunge 1x6 each leg
Romanian deadlift to snatch pull-through 1x8
Drop lunge 1x6 each leg
Sots press 1x8 The
exercises Brian originally chose, and the modifications I've added,
aren't just arbitrary movements thrown together to make a sweat-filled
warm-up. Each movement has a purpose.

The Method To The Madness The
first movement, the overhead squat, is really one exercise I can't live
without. It increases mobility in almost all the major joints of the
body and challenges our balance because the weight is so far away from
our base of support. The
low lateral squat, which we changed from the lateral lunge due to its
increased difficulty, provides a taxing position to be maintained for
an extended period of time through a full range of motion. The
Romanian deadlift to snatch pull-through will help us get a little more
movement in the hamstrings while drilling in the motion and mobility a
full snatch will require down the line. The overhead reverse
lunge will open up those constantly tight hip flexors while also
requiring balance, stability, and proper body positioning. The
drop lunge provides a rotational component that will hammer away at the
medial glutes and IT band. It's also a challenge to maintain balance. Lastly,
the Sots press is a more demanding form of the overhead squat. If done
properly, it really helps to open up the thoracic spine, which tends to
be extremely tight on a lot of athletes, especially younger ones.
Viktor Sots. The George Hackenschmidt of the Sots press.

Warm-Up Wrap-Up By
using this type of complex, one can enhance mobility in all major
joints of the body while also learning proper movement patterns that
will turn into strength movements shortly after. Especially in our
younger athletes, we can improve both mobility and strength, which tend to be the two biggest flaws with youths. A
good complex can be a highly effective warm-up tool, and it requires
very little space, to boot. If you're training a large group of
athletes in a weight room, or if you're training yourself in a crowded
gym, try this complex and watch the results follow.

About The Author
Jeremy Frisch is the Performance Director at the Competitive Athlete Training Zone in Acton, MA. He can be contacted at jfrisch@catzsports.com.
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