Walking up to the squat rack cold, doing a couple of light sets, and jumping straight into your working weight isn’t really a warm-up, even though it’s what a lot of lifters do. Learning how to warm up properly before leg day makes a genuine difference to both performance and injury risk, and the good news is it doesn’t need to take long to do properly.
The RAMP Method: A Framework Built for Strength Training
Unlike a running warm-up, which is largely about preparing for repetitive, lower-load movement, a leg day warm-up needs to prepare your body for heavy, high-load lifts. The RAMP protocol, Raise, Activate, Mobilise, Potentiate, is a well-established framework specifically designed for this purpose.
Raise
Spend 3 to 5 minutes raising your heart rate and general blood flow with light cardio, a stationary bike, rower, or brisk walk works well. The goal is simply to shift your body out of a resting state before targeting anything specific.
Activate
Activate the muscles that are about to do the heavy lifting. For leg day, this means the glutes, quads and hamstrings specifically. Bodyweight movements like glute bridges, split squats or banded lateral walks are effective, low-load ways to get these muscles firing before you load them heavily.
Mobilise
Move your hips, knees and ankles through the ranges you’ll need during your session. Bodyweight squats, walking lunges, and hip circles help ensure you have the mobility available to move well under load, rather than compensating with poor technique once the bar gets heavy.
Potentiate
This is where you bridge into your actual working sets. Perform a series of warm-up sets with the exercise you’re about to train, gradually increasing the load toward your working weight. Research on resistance training warm-ups has found that properly structured warm-up sets before squatting can meaningfully improve mechanical performance, including bar speed and power output, compared to skipping straight to working weight.
A Sample Leg Day Warm-Up
- 3 to 5 minutes light cardio (bike, rower, or brisk walk)
- 10 bodyweight glute bridges
- 10 walking lunges per leg
- 10 bodyweight squats
- 2 to 3 progressively heavier warm-up sets of your first working exercise, building toward your working weight
Common Questions About Warming Up Before Leg Day
How long should a leg day warm-up take?
A well-structured warm-up typically takes around 10 minutes, covering the raise, activate and mobilise phases, plus a few progressively heavier warm-up sets before your working weight.
Should I stretch before leg day?
Dynamic movement is generally more effective than static stretching before a heavy lifting session. Save longer static stretches for after your session.
Do I need to warm up if I’m only lifting light weights?
Even lighter sessions benefit from raising your heart rate and activating the key muscles you’ll be using, though the warm-up can be shorter and less involved than before a heavy strength session.
How BeFit Can Help
Our Strength and Conditioning team can help you build a warm-up and training programme tailored to your goals, with a movement assessment to identify any mobility or activation gaps worth addressing.
Book an appointment at BeFit Training Physiotherapy — no referral needed.
Edgecliff: (02) 9327 7749 | Coogee: (02) 7205 2805
References
Jeffreys I. Warm-Up Revisited: The Ramp Method of Optimizing Warm-Ups. Prof Strength Cond. 2007;6:12-18.
Impact of Re-Warm-Up During Resistance Training: Analysis of Mechanical and Physiological Variables. PMC12115624. 2025.
Australian Physiotherapy Association. Clinical guidelines. physiotherapy.asn.au.
