5 Mistakes That DESTROY Your Lifting Warm-up
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You want to warm-up effectively and efficiently, so let’s eliminate five mistakes that lifters commonly make when warming up.
Mistake #1: Using a Percentage Chart
Percentage charts are the diapers of the lifting world - they can be useful when just starting out to keep you from making a big mess of things, but in the long run, your life will be much better if you outgrow them.
There’s nothing wrong with using a percentage chart at first - you’ve got a lot going on in your head - technique, rest periods, weight jumps from session to session, etc. - and a warm-up chart makes for one less thing to think about.
with practice, warming up is simpler, easier, and quicker without a chart like this one.
However, with experience and some trial-and-error, you’ll learn that - after you do a few sets of five reps with the empty barbell - you’ll select the rest of your warm-up weights by simply taking two to four roughly even jumps in weight, and you’ll be at your work weight.
The longer you train, the more your warm-ups will remain mostly the same from session to session, and this is a weakness of charts as the percentage-based warm-up weights change each time your work weight changes. For an experienced lifter, on the other hand, the first few warm-up sets tend to remain the same, and he only has to deal with making subtle changes to the last warm-up set or two.
If you want to use a chart for the first few weeks, go ahead, but try and wean yourself off of it pretty quickly. Your warm-ups will be simpler and quicker when you do.
Mistake #2: Using a Warm-up App (or Spreadsheet)
I see what you did there.
A warm-up app is just a percentage chart shrouded in technology, so all of the same logic from Mistake #1 applies here as well.
With practice, warm-ups are easier, quicker, and simpler without these items.
Mistake #3: Using Plates That Are Too Small
Don’t use 1.25 lb plates in your warm-ups.
These plates (and smaller ones) are very useful for work weights, but you generally don’t need to be that precise for your warm-ups.
Make all your warm-ups end in either a zero (e.g., 80, 90, 100) or a five (e.g., 85, 95, 105), and you won’t need the 1.25 lb plates for warming up. As you get stronger, you can make most (if not all) of your warm-ups end with a five, and at that point, you won’t need 2.5 lb plates for your warm-ups either.
don’t use 1.25 lb plates in your warm-ups, and as you get stronger, you won’t use 2.5 plates (like this one here) as often either when warming up.
Remember - fewer options for warm-up weights means less to think about, which is generally a good thing. Warm-ups weights should be intelligently chosen, but you generally don’t need razor-sharp precision, and if you do, it won’t be until your last warm-up.
Mistake #4: Taking Too Much Time Between Warm-up Sets
Don’t rest between your warm-up sets.
Perform a warm-up set, load the weight for the next warm-up set, then perform that warm-up set, and so on.
Ample rest is very important between work sets, but we’re talking about warm-up sets. Since they are warm-ups, they’re not heavy yet, and the act of changing the weight between sets will provide enough rest for your next warm-up set.
If it’s a warm-up, there’s no need to rest - the act of changing the plates provides enough rest time.
It’s worth nothing that you want to rest a few minutes after your last warm-up set since you now have a work set coming up, but beyond that, you don’t need to rest between warm-ups.
If you want to rest several minutes between your warm-up sets, you are welcome to do so, but if you’re looking to save some time in the gym (and there are far more interesting things to do in life then spend all day in the gym), this is where to look first.
Mistake #5: Too Many or Too Few Warm-up Sets
Warming up should both prepare you for the work set and not exhaust you by the time you get there, so you want to find a reasonable middle ground in terms of how many sets to perform. After the empty bar, you don’t need seven more warm-up sets (i.e., too many warm-up sets), and conversely, you don’t want to jump from the empty bar right to your 275 lb squat (i.e., too few warm-up sets).
As mentioned earlier, after the empty bar (except the deadlift), most people can simply perform two to four more warm-up sets with gradually increasing loads on the bar to prepare for the work sets. A useful approach is to perform a set of five reps, then three reps, then two reps, and any sets after that would be 1 rep sets (i.e., singles). Here are a few examples (weight x reps x sets):
Example 1
45 x 5 x 2 (empty bar)
95 x 5 x 1
135 x 3 x 1
185 x 2 x 1
215 x 1 x 1
—————
235 x 5 x 3 (work sets)
Example 2
45 x 5 x 2 (empty bar)
65 x 5 x 1
85 x 3 x 1
105 x 2 x 1
—————
115 x 5 x 3 (work sets)
Example 3
45 x 5 x 2 (empty bar)
135 x 5 x 1
225 x 3 x 1
275 x 2 x 1
315 x 1 x 1
—————
345 x 5 x 3 (work sets)
For the deadlift, start with full-size plates, so you’ll either use bumper plates or 45 lb metal plates. Here are two examples:
Example 1
75 x 5 x 1
105 x 3 x 1
135 x 2 x 1
155 x 1 x 1
—————
170 x 5 x 1 (work set)
Example 2
135 x 5 x 1
225 x 3 x 1
315 x 2 x 1
355 x 1 x 1
—————
390 x 5 x 1 (work set)
Note that with this 5-3-2-1 scheme, the warm-up sets are tapered, i.e., you perform fewer reps as the weight on the bar increases. This allows you to prepare yourself for your work sets by increasing the load while not exhausting yourself in the process (since you’re doing fewer reps as the weight goes up).
As always, we hope these tips help you get stronger and live better.
-Phil
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