Mobility Exercise to Warm Up For Olympic Lifting ... What if you had to choose only ONE!?
Going back to the stranded island game!!! I have a few mobility movements that I absolutely love for warming up: foam rolling, worlds greatest stretch, single leg squats, lax ball tempering, etc...This specific exercise can warm up ANYONE and target just about every muscle grouping in the body.
CLOSE GRIP OVERHEAD SQUAT: This movement can be used for virtually any sport. I used this with great success when programming the development of the weightlifting program for our local high school’s strength program. The close grip overhead squat sped up the mobility process to enable the football players to hit depth and positions sooner than they otherwise would have been capable of.
Ultimately, the goal would be to hold a position with hands touching on the bar and maintaining upright posture in the hole when squatting, holding the arms in a long extended position, holding thoracic spine extension, maintaining full foot integrity on the ground which means the hips and lower back must also be very mobile!
This difficult warm up can follow a few different progressions. Begin with snatch presses off the back, bringing the grip closer each set, pausing for 10 seconds in the bottom position on the last rep of each set. I also recommend doing some driver squats to loosen up the hips and then plate pick ups to the overhead position, this will lead to a more active thoracic spine and thus more control overhead with the close grip overhead squat!