Your gym warm up should help you lift heavier weights, stay injury free and make you stronger. So why do 90% of trainees get their workout warm up so wrong?
Knowing how to warm up before exercise is absolutely essential if you’re serious about wanting to get stronger, leaner or bigger.
How John Got Stronger Than Ever By Warming Up Properly
My best friend John has been working out for around 3 years.
Being naturally skinny, he’d always struggled to gain weight so I told him to track his diet a little closer to make sure he was eating enough.
Months passed and he’d got a little bigger but was still not happy with his size. I helped him out where I could, giving him advice and getting him to ditch the bicep curls, leg extensions and other isolation exercises. I told him to focus on compound exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, weighted dips and pull ups.
He then told me something which helped me understand why he wasn’t gaining any weight.
He hadn’t ever squatted before and didn’t even train legs at all!We had a conversation about why he needed to be squatting and he agreed to add them to his routine.
I left him to it for a few months and he told me he was squatting every week and though he thought he was now gaining some muscle, he was struggling to add weight to the bar each week.
I went to the gym with him on Saturday morning to workout together as I was planning on squatting that day too.He stepped up to squat first, loaded up 40kg and pushed out 8 reps. What I thought was his warm up set turned out to be the heaviest weight he could handle!
He would never warm up he’d just jump straight into his heavy sets and had no idea about warm ups as he thought they were useless and just added to his gym time.
The lack of a proper gym warm up was probably part of the reason!
We had another conversation and I explained to him how a weightlifting warm up should be done and how much stronger he would feel if he did it properly.
Here’s what I told him…
Why Do You Need To Warm Up?
There are a number of very good reasons you MUST warm up:
• Warming up the muscles you are going to train is essential to prevent injury
• Warm muscles perform much better than cold ones, you’ll be able to lift more weight which is the key to progress in the gym
• You get a chance to “rehearse” the form you need for the exercise before you start slinging around the heavy weights
What Does A Good Gym Warm Up Look Like?
Light Cardio
Light cardio is a good way to loosen up your muscles, lubricate your joints and prepare your body for lifting weights.
5-10 minutes of light aerobics will suffice, DO NOT try to get a full cardio workout in as it only saps the strength you need for the weights!
The rule is that once you break a sweat you are probably warmed up well enough.
Light Sets
It’s common to see people do a good short cardio warm up but then get it wrong as soon as they pick up the weights. They usually do one of two things:
- They jump straight into their heavy sets
- They do 1-2 very light “pumping sets” and then jump into their heavy sets
Neither method is conducive to lifting the heaviest weight you can to set new lifting records or remaining injury free.
The goal of the warm up sets is to acclimatise your joints and muscles to the increased weight they will be asked to lift. You can’t do 1-2 sets with say 30kg and then jump to 80kg. In the same way you can’t just try to press the 80kg without any warm up.
The answer is slowly working up to within 5-10% of the weight you will be lifting during your proper sets (known as work sets).
Working Up To Your Work Sets
The number of warm up sets you need to do depends on how heavy your work sets will be and how technical the movement itself is.
For example, 12 rep sets of bicep curls only require 1-2 light warm up sets. Very heavy (85-90% of your max) deadlifts on the other hand, will require a longer warm up with more sets.
When preparing to lift heavy weights, it’s important not to exhaust yourself with your warm up sets. The way to do this is using single reps and other low rep schemes.
Here’s an effective gym warm up method for your heavy sets:
Movement: Deadlifts
Max Weight: 130kg for 6 reps
Pre Warm Up Sets
I hold the empty bar (20kg) and perform deadlifts to warm up my body to the movement.
Warm Up Set 1 – 50-60% of work weight x 5-8 reps
I use around 60% which is 77.5kg for 8 reps
Rest for around 2 minutes
Warm Up Set 2 – 65-75% of work weight x 3-5 reps
I use around 75% which is 97.5kg for 4 reps
Rest for around 2 minutes
Warm Up Set 3 – 75-85% of work weight x 1-3 reps
I use around 85% which is 110kg for 2 reps
Rest for around 2 minutes
Warm Up Set 4 – 85-95% of work weight x 1 rep
I use around 95% which is 122.5kg for 1 rep
Rest for around 5 minutes
Work Set 1 – 100% of work weight x 6 reps
I use 130kg for 6 reps
Rest for around 5 minutes
You can then either do another set or move onto a different exercise.
How To Calculate Your Gym Warm Up Sets
It’s easy to work out the weights you should be lifting during your warm ups provided you know how strong you are in each movement.
If it’s a new movement its better to be conservative and just estimate how much 100% would be in weight. You can then use this to work backwards to figure out your warm up sets.
So, for this example lets say your maximum bench press is 70kg.
Set Number | % of Max | Sum | Sum Notes | Weight | Rounding |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Warm Up Set 1: | 50% | 70 x 0.5 = | Work Set Weight (70kg) x % of Max (50%) | 35kg | |
Warm Up Set 2: | 65% | 70 x 0.65 = | Work Set Weight (70kg) x % of Max (65%) | 45.5kg | (round to 45kg) |
Warm Up Set 3: | 75% | 70 x 0.75 = | Work Set Weight (70kg) x % of Max (75%) | 52.5kg | |
Warm Up Set 4: | 85% | 70 x 0.85 = | Work Set Weight (70kg) x % of Max (85%) | 59.5kg | (round to 60kg) |
Work Set 1: | 100% | N/A | N/A | 70kg |
Give this gym warm up routine a try next time you head to the gym, I guarantee you’ll be amazed how much stronger you feel and the weights you’ll be lifting will be big.
Wanna know the best thing about this workout warm up?
It allows you to wipe the smirk off the big guys faces when you actually move the substantial weight on the end of the bar!
Lifting twice your body weight when your quite skinny yourself is a great feeling and others will look on in awe!
Lap it up and keep pushing yourself to lift more each week, just make sure you follow this gym warm up to fully support your efforts!
So How Did John Do Since He Started Using This Gym Warm Up?
I’m pleased to say that John’s been making great progress and his squat strength has DOUBLED! He’s gone from lifting a paltry 40kg to a more respectable 80kg for 6 reps at the time of writing,
Apparently, even Mrs John has been commenting on his legs!
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