diff --git a/pkg/workload/pgx_helpers.go b/pkg/workload/pgx_helpers.go
index bdff36887039..b62f76ec302c 100644
--- a/pkg/workload/pgx_helpers.go
+++ b/pkg/workload/pgx_helpers.go
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ func NewMultiConnPool(cfg MultiConnPoolCfg, urls ...string) (*MultiConnPool, err
 	// pool.
 	var g errgroup.Group
 	// Limit concurrent connection establishment. Allowing this to run
-	// at maximum parallism would trigger syn flood protection on the
+	// at maximum parallelism would trigger syn flood protection on the
 	// host, which combined with any packet loss could cause Acquire to
 	// return an error and fail the whole function. The value 100 is
 	// chosen because it is less than the default value for SOMAXCONN
@@ -102,8 +102,8 @@ func NewMultiConnPool(cfg MultiConnPoolCfg, urls ...string) (*MultiConnPool, err
 		conns := warmupConns[i]
 		for j := range conns {
 			j := j
+			sem <- struct{}{}
 			g.Go(func() error {
-				sem <- struct{}{}
 				var err error
 				conns[j], err = p.Acquire()
 				<-sem
diff --git a/pkg/workload/tpcc/tpcc.go b/pkg/workload/tpcc/tpcc.go
index 146fe168337d..3c660c16bae3 100644
--- a/pkg/workload/tpcc/tpcc.go
+++ b/pkg/workload/tpcc/tpcc.go
@@ -555,6 +555,9 @@ func (w *tpcc) Ops(urls []string, reg *histogram.Registry) (workload.QueryLoad,
 	ql := workload.QueryLoad{SQLDatabase: sqlDatabase}
 	ql.WorkerFns = make([]func(context.Context) error, w.workers)
 	var group errgroup.Group
+	// Limit the amount of workers we initialize in parallel, to avoid running out
+	// of memory (#36897).
+	sem := make(chan struct{}, 100)
 	for workerIdx := range ql.WorkerFns {
 		workerIdx := workerIdx
 		warehouse := w.wPart.totalElems[workerIdx%len(w.wPart.totalElems)]
@@ -567,11 +570,13 @@ func (w *tpcc) Ops(urls []string, reg *histogram.Registry) (workload.QueryLoad,
 		dbs := partitionDBs[p]
 		db := dbs[warehouse%len(dbs)]
 
+		sem <- struct{}{}
 		group.Go(func() error {
 			worker, err := newWorker(context.TODO(), w, db, reg.GetHandle(), warehouse)
 			if err == nil {
 				ql.WorkerFns[workerIdx] = worker.run
 			}
+			<-sem
 			return err
 		})
 	}