the 4-minute warm-up that demands discipline
This warm-up isn’t physical. It’s mental—and you don’t move on until it’s right.
It’s 11:00 a.m. on January 8, 2026.
Justin Velasquez is standing in front of his new team at Brazosport High School in Freeport, Texas.
First day.
First meeting.
First day as the head coach.
What does he do on Day 1?
He doesn’t start with a speech.
He doesn’t talk about culture.
He doesn’t install plays.
He starts with how they will start every single day:
a 4-minute warm-up.
I’ve done warm-ups before. Most of us have.
They’re usually physical—get loose, get warm, break a sweat.
This wasn’t that.
This 4-minute warm-up had a sequence of simple drills, but each one had something specific you could mess up.
Here’s the exact sequence they use:
Palms up ×10
Shoulder rolls ×10
Pogos ×30
Clap jacks ×20
High knees ×10
Lock-outs ×10
Right / Left arm up ×10 seconds
Heel to hand ×10
Push-ups ×10
Coach runs the stopwatch.
Each drill has a detail that can’t be shortcut.
Miss a rep. Lose count. Drift mentally.
When that happens, Coach Velasquez says one word:
“Zero.”
Back to the beginning.
No yelling.
No emotion.
No arguing.
“If I see it, I say it. Don’t be mad at me—be mad at the stopwatch.”
That’s the rule.
The warm-up is four minutes long.
It took forty minutes.
They spent forty minutes on a four-minute warm-up.
And here’s the part that matters most:
He knew it would.
Because discipline isn’t something a team has on Day 1.
It’s something they learn.
Justin explained this idea recently on the 4th & 3 podcast, and afterward I had a lot of coaches reach out asking the same thing:
"Do you have a video of the warm-up? Can you show what this actually looks like?
Today, for the first time, the team completed the full 4-minute warm-up clean—without a reset.
Below is the video.
Watch it with this lens:
This isn’t about the exercises.
It’s about attention, discipline, and mental lock-in.
This wasn’t about palms.
It wasn’t about counting reps.
It was about attention to detail.
It was about doing small things exactly right.
It was about learning that standards don’t bend just because it’s inconvenient.
If they couldn’t get through the first four minutes locked in, there was no reason to move on to the workout.
That’s why this matters.
For every coach reading this, the first few minutes of practice are always telling you the truth.
Not about talent.
Not about scheme.
But about focus, discipline, and buy-in.
If a team can’t execute something simple with precision, under a clear standard, there’s no reason to believe they’ll execute complex things later under pressure.
This warm-up doesn’t fix everything—but it reveals everything.
Not because it’s a clever warm-up.
Not because it looks good on a practice plan.
But because it sends a clear message immediately:
This is how we do things here.
Every rep matters.
Every detail matters.
And we don’t move on until it’s right.
That’s not physical preparation.
That’s mental discipline.
And once they get that right, the workout finally gets to start.
