Sammich's Warm-Up/Preparation Tips

[Sammich]

Hey kiddies. I've been at this game going on 13 years now, and I've learned a few things in my time (mostly by trial and error [and mostly error]). One of the most recent things that has become salient to me is the profound importance of getting properly warmed up before training, ESPECIALLY if you're doing something high-intensity like DC Training. Here are a few things I've learned that help me out, hopefully they will aid you as well:

1) Spend AT LEAST 10 minutes warming up.
If you're not spending at least 10 minutes, WHATEVER it is you do, it's probably not enough. It takes time to get the body ready to physically perform, and even as little as 10 minutes can be pushing the low end.

2) It's almost impossible to warm up too much.
Trust me, I've tried. One of the best squat sessions I've ever had have been after I squatted 20 reps with bodyweight, then 95#, then 135#, then 225#, then #275. Getting blood in your muscles, getting them loosened up, getting your CNS primes, and getting your heart rate up are PHENOMENALLY important to athletic performance. Training in the gym is no different than preparing for a competitive sports game -- you are preparing to perform as best you can, so do everything in your power to prepare.

3) NEVER neglect the mental aspect.
If your mind isn't in the game, you've already lost. This, above all, is the thing that takes YEARS of practice to perfect. Focus and concentration can be almost impossible to teach, but when you learn them for yourself, the results can be phenomenal. There are a jillion articles on this on a jillion websites, but it all boils down to learning it for yourself. But trust me -- once you learn it, it's like unlocking your secret power.

I welcome other EXPERIENCED people's additions to this thread.

[JohnCaesar]

Visualization is an incredibly under utilized medium for performance improvement from a preparation perspective.

[Sammich]

Visualization is an incredibly under utilized medium for performance improvement from a preparation perspective.

Yeah, the mental aspect is HUGE and deserves a thread devoted all to it, but it's like teaching someone how to have a mystical experience -- you can "kind of" guide, them, but it's a fundamentally personal experience, and everyone has to discover it for themselves.

[thedunhill225]

YEARS ago I change the way my warm up go. I lowered my warm up reps but increased total warm up sets and the diff felt like nt and day. I "felt" more prepared for heavier wts, stronger for my first set but still "warmer". To pick an ex, let's say my work set of deads was gonna be with 545... I used to warm up with like 135x10, 225x10, 315x8-10, 405x6 or so.....I WOULD be warm and go to work set...NOW I would warm up with 135x15-20, 225x4, 315x2, 405x1, 455x1 and 495x1. Speaking for myself, doing a greater number of warm up sets but keeping the reps down and getting closer to my work set wt while warming up has made a big diff. In this example the first work set doesn't "feel" as heavy cause I just did I single with a wt close to it, I feel fully warm cause I built the wt up slower. I know many powerlifters use lower reps and more total sets to warm up and I think they have it rt. When I was YOUNG and into powerlifting I used to bench with a dude that benched 6+ raw and he always had us warm up like this... I really don't know why I got away from it.
The one other thing I changed is that I used to only warm up on the first ex if the following exs workday involved muscles. I.e. I would warm up bench but not warm up my next chest ex or my delt or tri ex if I trained them the sams day. After a heavy set of benches my chest, delts and tris WERE warm and I never was injured or anything because of it but now I perform a warm up or two of just about every ex I do... It just makes me "feel" more ready for the heavier wts and helps me "feel" the ex more after I have had a practice run or two.

Peace

[mentalflex]

YEARS ago I change the way my warm up go. I lowered my warm up reps but increased total warm up sets and the diff felt like nt and day. I "felt" more prepared for heavier wts, stronger for my first set but still "warmer". To pick an ex, let's say my work set of deads was gonna be with 545... I used to warm up with like 135x10, 225x10, 315x8-10, 405x6 or so.....I WOULD be warm and go to work set...NOW I would warm up with 135x15-20, 225x4, 315x2, 405x1, 455x1 and 495x1. Speaking for myself, doing a greater number of warm up sets but keeping the reps down and getting closer to my work set wt while warming up has made a big diff. In this example the first work set doesn't "feel" as heavy cause I just did I single with a wt close to it, I feel fully warm cause I built the wt up slower. I know many powerlifters use lower reps and more total sets to warm up and I think they have it rt. When I was YOUNG and into powerlifting I used to bench with a dude that benched 6+ raw and he always had us warm up like this... I really don't know why I got away from it.
The one other thing I changed is that I used to only warm up on the first ex if the following exs workday involved muscles. I.e. I would warm up bench but not warm up my next chest ex or my delt or tri ex if I trained them the sams day. After a heavy set of benches my chest, delts and tris WERE warm and I never was injured or anything because of it but now I perform a warm up or two of just about every ex I do... It just makes me "feel" more ready for the heavier wts and helps me "feel" the ex more after I have had a practice run or two.

Peace

Dunill, I have the echo ypur post about using weights close to your working weight. I've found that more warm-ups with less reps while using weights closer to my working weight has not only helped prep my muscles and joints for handling the weight, but seems to put me in the right mental state. Just building up the weight until you reach that working weight lights a fire in me and gets me primed to kill the weight.

I'd also like to add that clearing your mid of clutter before you start training has also helped me. Although training in and of itself tends to give me the opportunity to get away from whatever else is going on around me, if I start my workout when I am all stessed out and worried about something I am am not able to push myself as hard, and although it is mental, it has carried through in my logbook. Usually all it takes is a few minutes of visualization, deep breathing and relaxation techniques before hitting the gym to help free my mind and I just tell myself, now is MY TIME, I will be able to deal with this more effectively later, and then I put my problems up on their mental shelf to be taken off later that day.

[RedSkull]

YEARS ago I change the way my warm up go. I lowered my warm up reps but increased total warm up sets and the diff felt like nt and day. I "felt" more prepared for heavier wts, stronger for my first set but still "warmer". To pick an ex, let's say my work set of deads was gonna be with 545... I used to warm up with like 135x10, 225x10, 315x8-10, 405x6 or so.....I WOULD be warm and go to work set...NOW I would warm up with 135x15-20, 225x4, 315x2, 405x1, 455x1 and 495x1. Speaking for myself, doing a greater number of warm up sets but keeping the reps down and getting closer to my work set wt while warming up has made a big diff. In this example the first work set doesn't "feel" as heavy cause I just did I single with a wt close to it, I feel fully warm cause I built the wt up slower. I know many powerlifters use lower reps and more total sets to warm up and I think they have it rt. When I was YOUNG and into powerlifting I used to bench with a dude that benched 6+ raw and he always had us warm up like this... I really don't know why I got away from it.
The one other thing I changed is that I used to only warm up on the first ex if the following exs workday involved muscles. I.e. I would warm up bench but not warm up my next chest ex or my delt or tri ex if I trained them the sams day. After a heavy set of benches my chest, delts and tris WERE warm and I never was injured or anything because of it but now I perform a warm up or two of just about every ex I do... It just makes me "feel" more ready for the heavier wts and helps me "feel" the ex more after I have had a practice run or two.

Peace

That's pretty much how I would work up on deads too... it's more acclimatizing the system to fire at 100% vs 'warming up'.

[steel1970]

I hafta agree with all of you regarding the mental aspect. Some days, depending on what the hell is going on in my life that day, I hafta sit in the gym and wait for my mental focus to shift toward my session. This is not easy to do at times. I'm not the type of person who can go into the gym angry, or upset, and have a stellar performance. I simply gotta be prepared on all levels....

As far as the body warming up, not being warm enough has led to some setbacks for me over the past year or two. I attribute nearly every injury I've had in the gym to not being properly warmed up. As my weights have climbed, as the intensity has climbed, I had failed to institute a warm up protocol that was sufficient for my body to respond....Nowadays, I always take my time, and I believe Sammich is right on the money with the 10 minute minimum thing...I usually spend about 15 minutes doing some VERY light stretches, some b/w type stuff, depending on the bodypart worked, maybe some motion movements to get the blood flowing...then I usually get set up on my movement and sit and visualize what I'm gonna do for a few minutes, clear my head of bullshit (mostly always family shit, with 3 kids and a wife...lol), and then do a few warm up sets with my movement. I don't eliminate warmups with the next movements either, I usually will do 1-2 sets of light weight just to feel the movement.....So far over the last 6 months or so, this has worked well for me....

[Michael Travis]

Good topic idea. I like reading how other people get ready to go after it, especially those who have been doing this awhile and are successful. I usually warm up for 20-30 minutes. I always start with ~20 minutes on an incline treadmill at around a 2.3. On leg day I'll do ~10 minutes, every other day 20. This gets my heart rate up, serves as somewhat of a cardio session, start sweating, etc. I then move on to the broomstick stretches. All the time using the mental/visualization aspect already mentioned. I'll run through my whole workout in my head, trying to feel the muscle working, while I'm still stretching etc.

I also have transitioned to doing heavier warm ups, and so far it has been working really well. Another thing I have been doing for the last year or so that has also really been helping is wearing a fleece for the whole workout. I used to just wear a tshirt and gym pants, but now wearing the fleece, it keeps everything nice and warm. At first it seemed too much, cause I would start sweating during the warm-up what I thought was too much, but it actually makes me remember to drink more water intra-workout, and I seem to have less tendentious pain, etc.

Sorry for the ramble, but it seems that I have really invested much more time in my warmups since I had SLAP surgery, and it has made a huge difference for the better this last 18 months...

[breck]

I hate warming up....and it comes to life when I pull something or have a less than stellar performance in the gym. Something I need to do more of. Good timing on the thread.

[mister69]

Long pants and sweaters for me year round.
5minute eliptical; foam roll; mobility; lots of warmup sets on every exercise.

[neme]

What do you guys think of warming up with 1 rep of your first working set weight?

[Sparkyboy]

I hate warming up....and it comes to life when I pull something or have a less than stellar performance in the gym. Something I need to do more of. Good timing on the thread.

I agree. I do 10 min on the eliptical and then 10 min of light reps and stretching before going at it. It also gives me time to get mentally in it.

[SadButTrue]

I hate warming up....and it comes to life when I pull something or have a less than stellar performance in the gym. Something I need to do more of. Good timing on the thread.

X2 It's like a necessary evil at my age though

[thedunhill225]

What do you guys think of warming up with 1 rep of your first working set weight?

You mean as your LAST warm up set rt? Not as your only warmups rt? If as your last warm up....if it helps and makes you feel more ready then fine, go for it. Err on the side of being "too warm"...as in if the choice is fewer warm ups to stay as strong as possible or risking losing a rep of your work set cause you "over warmed up"....choose the latter. Your better off losing a rep than you are losing a week, month or months cause ya hurt, pulled or tore something.
Yes, this is one of the things I disagree with Jones and mentzer about.

Peace.

[steel1970]

What do you guys think of warming up with 1 rep of your first working set weight?

That probably wouldn't hurt, BUT, it may depend where your rep range is. If my rep range was low, like if I was running 5x5 or something along that line, I wouldn't do it, but if my rep ranges were higher, say at least 8 and up, I think you could get away with it....If at least only to help you see what it's gonna take mentally to get that weight up....It could backfire though and play on your mind if it feels heavy as hell....lol