This is How You Should Warm Up
The most overlooked aspect of your workout is, more than likely, your warm-up. Most people will walk into the gym, get on a bike or treadmill for five minutes, then hop in the squat rack and do a warm-up set with the bar before throwing their working weight on the bar to get to work. This is not the way.
There are reasons you need to warm up, and we’re going to talk about those reasons today. But before we break everything down, here are the reasons you need to warm up:
Increased blood flow
Increased synovial fluid
Increased heart rate
Increased elasticity of muscles and tendons
Increased internal temperature
Rehearsal/practice of movements
Position and movement cues
Central nervous system preparation
It gives you time to turn your brain on and get dialed in before getting to work
Extra work while you’re relatively fresh
While everything on this list is important, the most overlooked impact a warm-up can have on your training is the fact that it allows you to get a ton of submaximal work in. Today we’re going to answer the question of “How should I warm up?”
Order of Operations
Whatever movements you decide to include in your warm-ups, the order of operations should always stay the same. Your warm-up should look like this:
General blood flow
Dynamic flexibility
Static flexibility
Dynamic mobility
Movement prep
CNS Prep
Below is a break down of each one of these steps within your warm up.
General Blood Flow
This should be the first thing you do at the gym. It could be jogging on a treadmill, hopping on a bike, doing some dynamic movement like jogs and backpedals/Cariocas/high knees/butt kicks/etc. On upper body days, my athletes actually do core exercises as our general warm-up. This is any movement to get the blood flowing throughout your body. This sets the table for the training session.
Dynamic Flexibility
After getting some blood flowing and getting. bit of a sweat, you’re going to move onto the dynamic flexibility portion of your warm-up. This can be things like knee hugs, toe grabs, straight leg marches, or even things like leg swings. You’ll do stretches through active ranges of motion here while up on your feet. Try to pick at least one movement for each major muscle group.
Static Flexibility
After dynamic flexibility comes static flexibility. This is where you’ll work on some of the more problem areas, which often include the groin, hip external rotators, hamstrings, and hip flexors in the lower extremity, and then the lats and pecs in the upper extremity. You’ll hold these stretches for 2-3 seconds at a time, and the goal here is to get more direct blood flow to the problem areas and to increase the overall elasticity of the tissue.
Dynamic Mobility
After the static flexibility comes dynamic mobility. This can be various CAR movements, quadruped hip mobility, or hurdle mobility in the lower extremity. In the upper extremity, this will include thoracic rotations and internal and external rotation exercises. This is where you’ll work to actively increase your range of motion. You can also do some end-range of motion isometric holds during this part of your warm-up.
Movement Prep
This is where you’ll rehearse some movements that you’ll perform in your training session. I like to do a few bodyweight squat variations, followed by some moderately loaded lunge variations in the lower extremity. You can watch this reel to get some ideas!
In the upper extremity, we’ll do various T, Y, W, V, etc movements. Lightly loaded. This can also be a great cue for positioning with both overhead pressing and bench pressing.
This step prepares you to be able to perform the movements that you’ve programmed in your training session.
CNS (Central Nervous System) Prep
After we get through the first five steps, we move on to our CNS prep. For the lower extremity, this can include some acceleration work (skip, bound, and sprint series), some jump variations (overspeed eccentric, reactive depth drop jumps, hurdle jumps, box jumps, etc), medicine ball throws, or even lightly loaded Olympic lift variations. For the upper extremity this can be medicine ball work, landmine push press variations, lightly loaded db push press variations, or jammer work. The goal here is to produce as much speed as possible. This will signal the body that it’s time to work, and there is some evidence that it can provide a post-activation potentiation (PAP) effect.
After your CNS prep, it is time to get under the bar. But when you’re warming up to squat, bench press, or deadlift, how do you get to your working sets? Warm-up sets are always a good idea, but if you’re working at 85% or 70%, or up to a new max, how do you get there? Are you going to cycle between plates and quarters? Maybe adding 10 lbs every time? We’re going to go over that next!
Warm-Up and Ramp-Up Sets
Alright so we’ve laid out a great order of operations within our warm-ups, but once we get through that and on to the gym floor what do we do?
Well, you always want to start off with a set with the bar. I don’t care how strong you are, you need to get under the bar and perform a set where there’s almost no load so you can start to set your bar path and body positioning. After that, you can get your warm-up sets in.
What is a warm-up set? Well, technically, a warm-up set is anything under 50% of your 1RM. So if you are a 500 lb squatter, your warm-up sets would be anything under 250 lbs.
If your 50% is less than 135 lbs, then you can do your first loaded set at 50%, so you won’t technically have any “warm-up” sets in this case. However, if your 50% is greater than 135, then you’re going to start with 135, and then go up by plates and quarters (45, and 25) until you reach your 50%. Here is an example of what I mean:
Let’s say that you’re a 500 lb squatter. 50% of your one rep max would be 250 lbs. In my opinion, 250 lbs is a bit heavy to start with, so I would do one set with the bar to nail down your bar path, then one set at 135x5, then 185x5, then 225x5, and then finally do your first ramp-up set at 250 lbs. In this instance, you would have four warm-up sets (including the one with just the bar). On the flip side, if your one rep max was 250 lbs, then you would do one set with the bar to nail down your bar path, then you would go to 50%, which would be 125x5 reps.
So now you’ve gotten through your warm-up sets with the bar, how do we continue on to our working sets? We use what are called ramp-up sets.
Ramp-up sets are anything 50% or higher that aren’t your working sets. What I like to do is hit a ramp-up set at 10 percent intervals. For example, if I’m working at 90% today then I’ll do my first ramp-up set at 50%, then 60%, then 70%, then 80%, and then I will arrive at my working sets at 90%. Another example would be if I was working at 85% for that day. I would do my first ramp-up set at 55%, then 65%, then 75%, and then I would arrive at my 85% working sets.
The goal of these ramp-up sets is to continue to warm yourself up on your way to your working sets for the day. If you think about it, if you’re working at 450 lbs, it would be wise to have a plan on how to get there. Ramp-up sets do that for you. Another huge benefit of these ramp-up sets can also be post-activation potentiation, or PAP. You should focus on bar speed as you work through your ramp-up sets. What this means is that the concentric phase (the way up) of your reps should be done with as much force as possible. You should try to put maximum effort into each rep as you ramp up. This can actually allow you to handle more weight in your working sets.
To wrap this section up, warm-up sets are anything below 50%, and ramp-up sets are anything 50% or higher that isn’t your working sets for the day. Next, we’re going to talk about ramp-up set volume.
Ramp-Up Set Volume
When ramping up we want to stimulate and not annihilate the tissue and CNS. This means that we should keep the volume very moderate in nature. What I like to do is ramp up sets of 5 reps for anything at 75% or below, 2-4 reps for 76-85%, 2-3 reps between 86-90%, and then 1 rep for anything above 90%. This makes sure you’re able to handle the weight without wearing the tissue out. We want to be as fresh as possible when we get to our working sets.
Here is an example of a 500 lb squatter who is going to work up to 95% for singles for the day:
Warm-Up Sets - Good controlled reps, find your positioning
10 reps with the bar
135x5-10 reps
185x5 reps
225x5 reps
Ramp-Up Sets - Focus on bar speed, maintain your position
55% - 275x5 reps x 1 set
65% - 325x5 reps x 1 set
75% - 375x5 reps x 1 set
85% - 425x3 reps x 1 set
Working Sets - Get to work
95% - 475x1 x 4-10 sets
As you can see, we do 42 reps before we ever even get to our working sets. This ensures the athlete is warm and prepared to get under 95%. This will ensure you don’t get hurt and you excel throughout the working sets.
Now we’re going to look at warm-up and ramp-up sets for a 250 lb squatter who is working up to 75% for fives for the day:
Warm-Up Sets - Good controlled reps, find your positioning
10 reps with the bar
Ramp-Up Sets - Focus on bar speed, maintain your position
55% - 135x5 reps x 1 set
65% - 160x5 reps x 1 set
Working Sets - Get to work
75% - 185x5 reps x 5 sets
As you can see, there is a pretty big difference between the 500 lb squatter and a 250 lb squatter, as well as a big difference between the 75% and 95% ramp-up volume. It should be fairly obvious, but if you’re going to be working at higher intensities and/or loads, you’re going to need more work to get ready for that intensity and/or load.
Wrapping Up Warm-Ups
If you’re going to take your training and goals seriously, then it’s time to start taking your warm-ups just as seriously. There is a lot of work that can be done in warm-ups, and priming yourself to handle heavier loads will pay dividends down the road when it comes time to test. Here’s a cheat sheet for how you should warm up:
General blood flow
Dynamic flexibility
Static flexibility
Dynamic mobility
Movement prep
CNS Prep
Warm-up sets
Ramp-up sets
If done properly, your warm-ups should put you in the best possible position to succeed each and every time you walk into the gym. If you’re serious about your goals, then don’t sleep on warm ups!
