Want to achieve a greater, personal record-breaking power lift while simultaneously increasing your overall strength? Learn to warm-up cleverly. Warming up properly or improperly can make or break some workouts. As a new lifter, many years ago, I used to think that warming up was mostly for older folks who needed it so that they didn’t injure their joints. Man, was I wrong. Done strategically, a great warm-up can do a lot more than spare our joints. Here is one of my own ground breaking strategies that you can use for yourself.
This method is probably most useful for compound joint movements, such as the bench press, squats or latissimus pull downs. If you were to use this method for an isolated exercise, or a smaller muscle group, it may only fatigue the muscle too much before your lift. It is also not for beginners. If you don’t have at least one year of serious weight lifting under your belt, please don’t use this.
First off, doing a relatively light cardiovascular warm-up certainly can’t hurt. The heart is a muscle, too; warming it up adequately can help increase blood flow to the muscles for your lifts and get the heart itself prepped for the work ahead. I don’t always implement a cardiovascular warm-up before performing a lift, but it truly is advisable for optimal performance. Just don’t overdo it, or you’ll not have energy enough left to perform at your absolute best. I usually do no more than 5 minutes on a stationary bike or other cardio apparatus. I also recommend keeping it at a fairly light intensity or “light moderate” intensity. Remember, you’re only trying to get the heart pumping and “wake-up” the body. You are not trying to tax the legs and you’re not doing a cardio workout, just a warm-up.
Once you’ve finished your cardio warm-up, this is a good time for a light stretch; nothing that will over-stretch or strain the muscles, but enough to get them loosened up.
At this point, you’re ready to dig in and get things going. Find the machine or free weights for the lift you’re wanting to perform. Be sure to catch your breath 100 percent, so that you have adequate energy and are in full concentration. Don’t sit there ’till you fall asleep, as that defeats the purpose of the cardio warm-up. Anywhere from 5-10 minutes should be plenty of rest, depending on your personal fitness level. Age is such a small factor that it’s really not worth including. If you’ve lived sedentary for years and years, then you’re going to be unfit; I don’t care if you’re 10 or 110.
The next thing to do is position yourself perfectly, with your body in the most biomechanically strong position, just as if you’re going to do your heavy lift. Using just enough weight to trigger the muscle without stressing it much, do a lift of about 7 or 8 repetitions, no more than 9. This first set should be very, very light. I recommend using well under 50 percent of your maximum. This is just to get the joints well lubricated with synovial fluid and ease the joints and primary muscles to be used into the workout. It’s wise, now… and later. Do this light set of 7 to 9 and then break for at least 2 or 3 minutes.
You’re now ready for a heavy warm-up. When I do these heavy warm-up sets, they look like regular lifts to most onlookers. The key to remember here is not to go anywhere near the last repetition. If you do that, you’ll expend far too much ATP (energy molecules, basically). This set can be nice and heavy, but I wouldn’t make it super heavy just yet because you’re still only warming the muscles up. I like to use a weight that I know that I could actually do about 12 or more times, but then cut the set short at around the 6th or 7th repetition.
Now, rest for a good 5 minutes. The wait could seem boring to some, but I’ve had spectacular results before using rest periods of 10 minutes or more! And, this defies every scientific recommendation I’ve ever set eyes on. Sometimes, it just takes longer for full ATP restoration. That doesn’t mean that as much as 10 minutes will work for everyone, but you certainly don’t want to cut into your recuperation when using heavy warm-up sets before a competitive lift. So, wait out the 5! Sit, walk around or work a very small muscle group to take up the slack time. It’s very important, however, that you do not work a smaller muscle that you are going to need to use to perform your primary lift. For example, if you are trying a maximum bench press that day, then, by working your calves during the rest period, you wouldn’t run the risk of hurting your bench press power.
For your next warm-up set, you’re going to use a weight that you could potentially do about 8 or 9 times. But, you’ll want to stop around the 4th or 5th repetition. Then rest at least 3 to 5 minutes. Sometimes, it can be tough to tell when exactly to stop, especially if you typically push until your muscle just can’t do anymore. The general rule here is, “Stopping too soon is better than doing too much”.
The last warm-up set utilizes a weight that you could do for about 6 reps, but you’ll want to stop at about 3 or, maybe, 4. Rest at least 5 minutes, if not 8 or so because your next lift will be an all-out-maximum lift for the highest number of reps that you can perform. Now you’ve done 4 really good warm-up sets and your muscles are pumped nearly full of blood, but not at all fatigued. You can experiment yourself with a 5th, perhaps slightly heavier, set. I’ve had varying results with that. I have noted, however, that with exercises such as the squat press, where the larger muscle groups such as the Quadriceps, Gluteals and Hamstrings are used in conjunction, it is considerably less likely that ATP will be significantly depleted after a 5th warm-up set. Just don’t push yourself to anywhere near the last repetition or it won’t be a warm-up at all, it’ll be a workout. Remember to always “save something”. You don’t go “all out” until your first true set. Here’s the cool thing: by many people’s standards, after completing 4 or 5 sets like these, you’ve already had a workout! But, you’re only warming up.
After you’ve fully recouped from your last warm-up set, you should now be able to hit an all-time maximum power or strength lift. Load up the weight you want to lift. I recommend using a weight that you know you can lift at least 3 to 5 times, if not 8 times or so, and shooting for the 1 or 2 extra repetitions that you just couldn’t perform the last time you tried. You can always calculate your estimated 1 rep maximum. Dig your feet in, focus your mind and tear it up! Since this last set would be your first actual set, you could always add in 2 or more willpower challenging sets afterward for an extra full workout! Have fun reaching your personal best.