Embodiments of the invention provide a method, article of manufacture, and an apparatus used to optimize the execution of a database query. One embodiment includes a computer-implemented method that includes the steps of receiving a query of a database, prior to executing the query, analyzing the query to select a locking strategy to use in executing the query, and executing the query using the selected locking strategy. Depending on the content of a particular query, or the status of a database, a query optimizer may determine whether to escalate from a row level locking strategy to a page level locking strategy when executing the data query.