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Evidence-based articles & blogs to help with making training more effective, nutrition more flexible & life more enjoyable.
The idea of a warm up is to physically & physiologically prepare you for your working sets without creating any fatigue. As such, it makes sense to incrementally increase the weight you’re lifting until you arrive at the weight you’d like to perform your working sets at. These incremental jumps need to be somewhat logical, and either the same amount as the previous jump or slightly smaller. You don’t need to perform full sets at each load - after the first 1-2 warm up sets, each subsequent warm up set is simply an opportunity to acclimatise to a slightly heavier weight on the way to your working weight, so that at no point are you ‘shocked’ by how heavy something feels.
The idea of a warm up is to physically & physiologically prepare you for your working sets without creating any fatigue.
As such, it makes sense to incrementally increase the weight you’re lifting until you arrive at the weight you’d like to perform your working sets at. These incremental jumps need to be somewhat logical, and either the same amount as the previous jump or slightly smaller. You don’t need to perform full sets at each load - after the first 1-2 warm up sets, each subsequent warm up set is simply an opportunity to acclimatise to a slightly heavier weight on the way to your working weight, so that at no point are you ‘shocked’ by how heavy something feels.
Best practice would involve having a rough idea of your working weight as a range, so that you can warm up accordingly. Once you have your rough working weight (which you can ultimately select after completing your final warm up based on how you’re feeling), you can work backwards to establish what your other warm up sets should look like.
As an example, if you’re squatting & aiming to hit 100kg/ 220lbs on your top or working sets, your warm ups could look like this:
Note as the weight increases, the number of reps in each warm up set should likely decrease. This is because we are simply trying to incrementally adjust to the amount of weight we’re lifting, without doing enough reps to create any fatigue. As the sets go on, the jumps become smaller - it won’t ever make sense to take a bigger jump than the previous jump you took, so keep this in mind when figuring out how to warm up for your target weight (with the exception of moving from an empty barbell into your first working set).
As another example for an exercise where you aren’t going to require as much weight, your warm up might look like this if you’re looking to hit something around 50kg/ 110lbs:
For something heavier, such as a deadlift, you could consider something like this:
There is no right or wrong when it comes to determining your warm up sets, but try to adhere to these key principles:
The above applies to the majority of major movements, particularly towards the beginning of a session. You may find you don’t need to be as thorough with subsequent movements, particularly if you’ve already been hitting the same muscle group. However, as you get stronger, it will likely be necessary to add in at least 1-2 warm up sets on each exercise, even if only to become familiar with the movement pattern on that day & reduce the shock factor of jumping straight into lifting a heavy weight. It will set you up far better to be strong and get better over time.
I.e. you may find after bench pressing, you don’t need such a thorough warm up to move into a chest press machine, or dumbbell presses. However, if you require a considerable amount of weight on that subsequent exercise, warming up to it, even with only a handful of reps at each jump, will far better prepare you for those working sets, and reduce the ‘shock’ of how heavy something feels when you lift it for the first time.
As an example, when I perform Incline Barbell Bench Press, I would follow this protocol:
Then, when moving into my next exercise - Paused Dumbbell Bench Press - I would do the following:
The warm up sequence for the second exercise targeting a similar muscle group is far less thorough, and more so focused on reacquainting myself with the skill, and adjusting to heavier loads to prepare for my working weight.
There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to warming up for any specific exercise, but keep in mind when deterring the best way to prepare yourself for your working sets the idea should be to feel ready without having done any sets that contribute to you feeling tired in any way. Then, when you unrack your top or working set weight, you should feel ready for it, and as if it feels somewhat familiar, considering your final warm up set wasn’t too far from the weight you’re lifting on your top or working sets.
If you have any questions about a specific warm up protocol or want to confirm you’re figuring things out appropriately, send any examples through to me and I’ll let you know if you’re on the right track.
*the conversion between kilograms and pounds may not be entirely accurate in these examples - I’ve done my best to select numbers that are closest to what might be logical given standard weight plates in commercial gyms.
