Warming Up For Other Activities

Warming Up For Other Activities:

This article is mainly focused on warming up for a bodybuilding workout. However, as a bodybuilder, in our quest to fitness we want to perform optimally in anything we do and more importantly finish it injury free.

Warming Up For Sports:

To warm up for sports, a sport specific warm-up is usually best. Just like squatting is not a good warm-up on chest day, playing kickball is not a good warm-up on a day of tennis practice.

Instead of going into a bunch of different sports specific warm-ups which has no meaning to all of us bodybuilders unless the warm-up is for a posing routine: I will just say that a general total body warm-up benefits any athlete.

This total body warm-up can consist of light exercises with dumbbells, but most of the time the warm-up is things like 20 jumping jacks, 20 push-ups, 20 sit-ups, and 3 laps around the field. This gets blood flowing all over since all areas of the body are used in a sport.

Step One of the Warm-Up:

The first focus of a warm-up should be to give the muscles a light pump. This is best accomplished by completing 1-2 sets of 8-12 reps with a very easy weight.

This step will make the muscles ready for heavy warm up sets and eventually the working sets. It will also get you in the groove and in the mood to lift. So for our lifter squatting 355X5, his first two sets could look like this:

Step Two Of The Warm-up:

The next step in the warm-up is to get your muscles ready for heavy weights to failure! 

The next two sets should come pretty close to the weight that will be used for the first working set, but will only be 1 or 2 reps - this is so that you don't fatigue your muscles and so you don't induce any micro trauma too early. These two sets can look like this (for our 355X5 squatter):

Step Three of The Warm-Up:

The next step in the warm-up is the working set! No, that is not it! The next step is to make sure you get a FULL 2-3 MINUTES REST after your last heavy warm-up. 

This will let the minimal amount of fatigue that did occur clear out but is also a short enough time so that the muscles maintain elevated blood flow.

Total Warm-Up:

135X12 - This should feel a little uncomfortable and a lot of times a lifter will feel weak here.

225X8 - This is work but you should start feeling stronger.

275X3 - Wow! This feels very heavy for you! But it's just a mental block that will be eliminated. That is why a heavy warm-up is beneficial!

325X1 - This set should feel a little heavy but solid.

355X5 - After you are prepared from those entire warm ups this set should feel solid.

After this, you do not repeat the warm-up process! Simply continue doing heavy sets (most lifters do 2-4 sets of one exercise).

After you have done a warm-up for one muscle group you do not need to do an in-depth warm-up for each following exercise. 

For example, if the next exercise is stiff leg dead lifts, a light set of 60% of the working weight for 8 reps is an adequate warm-up.

Another point to note is that it is best to warm-up each muscle using the first exercises that is to be done. 

If it is your leg day and you are doing squats first, don't use the leg extension to warm up - get in that squat rack and do a few sets! This will increase flexibility to the specific exercise and will also increase body awareness for that exercise.

At times a weight will feel oddly heavy or oddly light due to various reasons. If this ever happens just perform another warm-up set with the weight and the heavy feeling should go away. 

The best way to enter a working set is with a sense of confidence and strength without fatigue and that is what this warm-up method accomplishes.

Getting Your Nerve through a Warm-up Routine:

Have you ever felt nervous or edgy before a big set of squats on leg day, or in the hour before you go for the new dead lift record? This always happens to me personally. It is natural. 

Maybe thousands of years ago, underdeveloped primates were crushed as they carried heavy items back to their caves in a squat position. These days we have squat racks which prevents this from occurring, but whatever the reason, we must overcome this.

During my warm-up sets I like to take that time to get my nerve together. For squats, dead lifts or bench presses my warm-ups sometimes take around 10 minutes, and this is a good time to get your head on straight and realize that the set is coming.

If you follow the warm-up as described above, you should find that you feel much more confident with the heavy weight because you were acclimated to it already.