Warm-Up Working Sets

Warm-Up Working Sets:

It is important you let your nervous system know what is coming and jumping from the bar to a triple figure weight is unreasonable and will not allow you to perform at your 'true' maximum, because your CNS is not prepared for this. 

Before you perform a heavily weighted movement, please do warm-up sets for your nervous system's sake. Warm-up sets will provide you with all of the above listed benefits and will be of great assistance in your preparation for working sets. 

But as with all things you have to do it right and with warm-up sets there are a lot of common misconceptions made by even the most experienced lifters.

A lot of people believe high reps will warm you up. This is wrong. Working at high repetition ranges will instigate your body to produce lactic acid into the blood. 

This significantly impairs the nervous system to operate high threshold motor units which are recruited during heavy resistance training. 

If you are operating in strength rep ranges (1-6 reps) or hypertrophy rep ranges (6-12 reps), then you should go over 6 reps in your warm ups.

Another common myth with warm up sets is that doing low set warm ups e.g. ten reps with the bar then jumping straight into the sets, is sufficient. This again is wrong. 

So it is important to include at least 3-5 warm sets, sometimes more depending on how close you are working to your 1 RM.

Pain When Stretching

If you are stretching properly you should only feel a mild discomfort in the antagonist muscle at the most. If you feel any significant pain or discomfort before, during or after stretching or athletic activity then it is important to identify the origin of the problem.

Severe pain will normally point towards an injury of some sort, so if this occurs do not continue with stretching or exercising until you have fully recovered.

There are many supplements on the market that will help shorten the amount of time needed for you to recover from a workout. A few of these supplements may be ones you are most likely already taking:

Example 1

You are aiming to do 4 work sets with 250 lbs. for 2-4 reps.

Warm up set 1:       Bar Only: = 1 x 45 lbs. x 5 reps

Warm up set 2:       50% 4RM = 1 x 125 lbs. x 4 reps

Warm up set 3:       75% 4RM = 1 x 185 lbs. x 3 reps

Warm up set 4:       90% 4RM = 1 x 225 lbs. x 2 reps

Warm up set 5:       95% 4RM = 1 x 240 lbs. x 1 rep

Work sets:              100% 4RM= 4 x 250 lbs. x 2-4 reps

Example 2

You are aiming to do 3 work sets with 160 lbs for 8-10 reps.

Warm up set 1:       Bar only:          = 1 x 45 lbs. x 6 reps

Warm up set 2:       50% 10 RM       = 1 x 80 lbs. x 6 reps

Warm up set 3:       80% 10 RM       = 1 x 130 lbs. x 4 reps

Work sets:             100% 10 RM      = 3 x 160 lbs. x 8-10 reps