Share your warm up for lifting

Seeing as I workout from home...

Dancing in front of the mirror for a couple of minutes? 😬 You didn't clarify whether you needed effectiveness as a criteria.

It just gets me in a lifting (or general exercising) mood if the right DJ mix is going 🤷🏿‍♀️

I do 45 mins conditioning and mobility (I do Olympic lifting so need everything warmed up) before I start lifting. It includes core work (ab roll outs, hanging knee raises) lat work, shoulder mobilisation, lower back work (hyper extensions), I roll my quads with the bar, do body weight squats / lunges, and finally go through the lifts with a broomstick to see if there are any areas of tightness before I touch the bar. Then I’ll do warm ups with the bar specific to my lifts that day (snatch contact, high pulls, front rack) before loading the bar.

My sessions take a while but at my age (47) I can’t snatch or clean and jerk without all that! 🤷‍♂️🤣

If I am going to squat heavy I start with leg extensions and then do 4 warm up sets with the squat movement with 12,7,3,1 reps, than I start my working sets. I will also return to the leg extensions later on in the workout. As far as deadlifting goes, I do my deadlifts almost last on back day. After all my rowing and pulling movements I do a few heavy sets of deadlift with no actual deadlift warm ups. I normally do heavy T-bar, or bent over rows just before my heavy deadlift sets.

I keep my warmup short and sweet because I can't spare the time. First, I hurry on the way to the gym just to get my heart pumping (change my clothes and hustle around getting ready). If I'm deadlifting my warmup is typically: 135 x 5, 135 x 5, 225 x 5, 275 x 3, 325 x 1, and then my working sets (usually in the 360 range for fives). I'm 52 and pretty much injury free these days. I wear a hoodie for the first few warmup sets too. I'm usually kind of excited to begin... I've been following this type of simple warmup for years for all my primary lifts... works for me.

Best advice I can give you on warm up is stay specific to the lift itself. Further away in terms of specificity, the less beneficial.

So if your squatting reps of 6 a general but excellent warm up for a beginner to a advanced lifter would be something incremented towards your working sets. Here is one I might program for a more novel lifter compared to a more advanced.

MORE NOVEL
1. Air squats 6 reps
2. 35 x 6
3. 55 x 6
4. 75 x 6
5. 90 x 6 ( working set)


ADVANCED
1. Air squats 6 rep
2. 45(empty bb) Xreps/sets needed
3. 135 x 6
4. 225 x 6
5. 315 x 6
6. 405 x 6
7. 495 x 6
8. 525 x 6 (working set)

Injuries don't come from improper warm up per see, they come from improper load management. Use appropriate intensity with adequate volume and your injury risk is low.

Speakeasy76 wrote: »

Foam rolling for tight spots (which for me is a lot, unfortunately)
Mobility work for all working muscles
Some activation work for underactive muscles (TA muscles and small back muscles)
2-3 warm up sets of main lifts

I would think the foam rolling would be better after lifts not before. Not that I'm an expert 😜

davew0000 wrote: »

I am following Matthew’s program and also felt, as a 41yo, just the lifting warm ups were insufficient. I do 5 mins of targeted CV, e.g. rowing on pull day, and some stretching of the muscles involved before starting my warm up sets.

Actually science shows that stretching of muscle before heavy lifting hampers your progress.

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/stretch-before-exercise-not-so-fast

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Speakeasy76 wrote: »

richardgavel wrote: »

Speakeasy76 wrote: »

Foam rolling for tight spots (which for me is a lot, unfortunately)
Mobility work for all working muscles
Some activation work for underactive muscles (TA muscles and small back muscles)
2-3 warm up sets of main lifts

I would think the foam rolling would be better after lifts not before. Not that I'm an expert 😜

It depends on what your goal is with it, I guess. My goal is to loosen up tight spots and/or overactive muscles beforehand for better performance. I used to do it afterwards, but have read multiple personal trainer's books or blogs (e.g., Bret Contreras) that mention doing it beforehand.

Foam rolling shows no additional benefit of performance of a lift.

Foam rolling is basically a self massage that may make you feel good but doesnt improve or benefit compared to proper warm up with specificity. In other words if you're preparing to squat, them warm up squatting.

If you enjoy foam rolling, no harm. Just no added benefits and takes time that might be considered better allocated.

I would really take some caution of Contreras' advice and as always do your own research. Some of his evidence is highly misleading.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6543984/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6543984/

Unfortunately, the literature on FR that does exist is equivocal and insufficient, which is why the widespread use of FR is to date not fully supported by the available empirical data. In addition, there is currently no meta-analysis that has evaluated the literature and calculated the pooled effects of FR. This creates a gap in the translation from research to practice for strength and conditioning coaches who use FR tools and recommend these products to their athletes (Cheatham et al., 2015).

Chieflrg wrote: »

Speakeasy76 wrote: »

richardgavel wrote: »

Speakeasy76 wrote: »

Foam rolling for tight spots (which for me is a lot, unfortunately)
Mobility work for all working muscles
Some activation work for underactive muscles (TA muscles and small back muscles)
2-3 warm up sets of main lifts

I would think the foam rolling would be better after lifts not before. Not that I'm an expert 😜

It depends on what your goal is with it, I guess. My goal is to loosen up tight spots and/or overactive muscles beforehand for better performance. I used to do it afterwards, but have read multiple personal trainer's books or blogs (e.g., Bret Contreras) that mention doing it beforehand.

Foam rolling shows no additional benefit of performance of a lift.

Foam rolling is basically a self massage that may make you feel good but doesnt improve or benefit compared to proper warm up with specificity. In other words if you're preparing to squat, them warm up squatting.

If you enjoy foam rolling, no harm. Just no added benefits and takes time that might be considered better allocated.

I would really take some caution of Contreras' advice and as always do your own research. Some of his evidence is highly misleading.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6543984/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6543984/

Unfortunately, the literature on FR that does exist is equivocal and insufficient, which is why the widespread use of FR is to date not fully supported by the available empirical data. In addition, there is currently no meta-analysis that has evaluated the literature and calculated the pooled effects of FR. This creates a gap in the translation from research to practice for strength and conditioning coaches who use FR tools and recommend these products to their athletes (Cheatham et al., 2015).

Thanks for the info. It seems both articles you posted are the same, but I did find the one that is the meta-analysis of other FR studies. It seems that at best, there just isn't enough evidence to say it's effective, at least for the regular exerciser, but possibly for specific sports athletes. I'm wondering, though, what types of FR was done and for what populations.

I follow Cori Lefkowith of Redefining Strength, primarily for her prehab/rehab stuff for injury prevention and rehab (not for the workouts themselves). She is a big advocate of FR in combination with mobility work, but not just doing it to do it, but for specific purposes like overworked/tight muscles and injury prevention. She also has several videos on HOW to do it for specific purposes, and adds into other prehab routines. I should add that I also include warm up sets of my big movements for the workout and mobility/activation work. It definitely doesn't feel relaxing at the time, and when I do it is more like the deep pressure massage that can actually be kind of painful!

I personally have a long history of overworked muscles/tight spots--usually the same ones--and not just from workouts. In fact, I'm much more conscious of using the correct muscles during workouts, but it's my everyday posture that I've had for YEARS that I"m working to correct and has caused issues, as well as my generally body type/resting muscle tone. As a generally anxious person, I have a big tendency to hold my stress in my neck and shoulders, which has created a lot of knots, which I think impacts my workouts. I know that FR is kind of a bandaid and I have to work on the root of the problem, but I do feel it helps, at least temporarily. It may just be psychological, but I guess I could experiment by not doing the FR beforehand and seeing what happens.

(I stretch afterward when my muscles are warmed up from the lifting).

Back in my track days in school, we would warm up before runs with dynamic stretches...swinging legs, lunges, etc. Only after did we do static stretches...touching toes, etc.

For lifting upper body, my first lift of the day I'll do the exercise with an empty bar, then add 25% of working weight, then 50%, then 75%, finally getting to my working weight. Later exercises in the same session I either won't bother with a warmup set (if the movement is basically the same...BB vs DB, etc), or a single warmup set using 50% of working weight (if the movement hits the same muscle but with a different motion).

For leg day lifting, jumping 25% at a time would be rather significant jumps as my legs are considerably stronger than my upper body. So I'll instead do a warmup set every 40-50 pounds. Consequently my leg warmups take a long time compared to my upper body, but that's ok, as I usually start with just the bar and feeling rather stiff, but by the time I get up in weight my range of motion has increased and the stiffness has disappeared.

To the coaches and other experienced lifters. What do you think I did wrong yesterday?

It was upper body session which currently starts with Arnold presses. I didn’t do stretches and instead my warm up comprised of a couple of sets with lower weight (10kg dumbbells). I did my first working set and managed to strain my trap muscle on the right side.

I had a pull session with deadlifts two days before and also did a set of pull ups earlier in the day. I’d say I was still recovering from that.

Instinctively I feel like I should have done more warm up movements such as shoulder rotations before lifting.

I’m also going to check my form on the Arnold Presses and am wondering about dropping them altogether. They seem riskier than most exercises, or at least, easier to get wrong.

It’s annoying though. I’m expecting to take a week off and am hoping I don’t need longer.

ninerbuff wrote: »

davew0000 wrote: »

I am following Matthew’s program and also felt, as a 41yo, just the lifting warm ups were insufficient. I do 5 mins of targeted CV, e.g. rowing on pull day, and some stretching of the muscles involved before starting my warm up sets.

Actually science shows that stretching of muscle before heavy lifting hampers your progress.

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/stretch-before-exercise-not-so-fast

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

It’s an interesting article. Not sure whether I learned the right lesson but it was this, together with the general conversation and a desire to keep my sessions efficient, that resulted in me skipping my 5 minutes of related cardio and a few stretches before starting with my warm up sets.

I think I’ll go back to the cardio, stretches, warm up weights routine.