How to Warm-Up properly

We have been incorporating a lot of heavy lifts into our program, and the question that comes up quite often is, “what should I do for my warm-up sets?”  By now you should know this, but just in case you don’t hopefully this will help.

“Warming up is an essential component of training, but it need not be a tremendously creative affair, with lots of arm waving, hopping, wiggling, and calisthenics.” –Rip

First of all, you should have a pretty good idea of your max sets, not just one rep max (1RM), but your 3RM and 5RM as well.  Generally your 3RM is 90% of your one rep max and your 5RM is 85% of your 1RM.  This is just a general scheme and will not be perfect for everyone. 

When warming up for a heavy set you want to know a) what rep scheme your are hitting and b) have an idea of what weight you are going to hit.  Then, do the complete range of motion for that exercise with an empty bar first, for as many sets as necessary to warm the range of motion.  Then increase the weight in even increments for 3 to 5 sets until ready to handle the work set weight. 

For example:  You are working up to a 5 rep max Back Squat of 165lbs.

45lbs. (the bar) x 5 reps for 2 sets

75lbs. x 5 reps

95lbs. x 4 reps

125lbs. x 3 reps

145lbs. x 2 reps

165lbs. x 5 reps (Working Set)

The idea being to slowly increase the weight and get your body used to the heavier load, but decreasing the reps in each successive warm-up set so as not to fatigue your body.  This is just an example and can be manipulated as needed.

When hitting a heavy day in which you will hit multiple sets of the same movments, ie. Back Squat 5×5, the goal is to hit the same weight across all 5 sets.  Then next time you hit this progression your goal is to lift more weight.  It is also important to get enough rest between sets, this is generally 3-6 minutes, but on extremely heavy sets can be as long as 7-10 minutes.