How to Warm Up

It should be pretty self explanatory why we need to warm up before training. You shouldn't just walk into the gym and go into squats right away. Warming up helps to get the blood flowing through the body, and prepares our joints and muscles for the punishment which will soon unfold. Warming up helps to loosen up any tightness in the body, which is particularly important in cold weather.

There isn't really a right or wrong way to warm up, everyone does it differently but provided your warm-up routine effectively warms up your major joints (hips, shoulders, knees) it should be okay.

Check out this link for an excellent warm-up routine for the hips which I personally do, and having been doing religiously for a couple of years now. Having sufficient hip flexibility is important, particularly for squatting.

Some people also like to warm up their body with cardio, which is fine provided it doesn't tire you out excessively. 5 minutes should be enough.

Now onto warming up for your main lifts.

Always start with the empty bar. Warming up with the empty bar is important, because you can perform reps with good technique which will help to ingrain the proper movement pattern in your mind once you start putting weight on the bar.

I generally like to warm-up in 4-5 sets. It just depends on how heavy the weight on the work set is going to be. e.g if you're going to squat 100kg, you can warm up like this:

• 20kg x 5
• 40kg x 5
• 60kg x 3
• 80kg x 1
• 100kg 5 x 5

If you're going to bench press say 70kg, this is how you could warm up:

• 20kg x 5
• 40kg x 5
• 50kg x 3
• 60kg x 2
• 70kg 5 x 5

If the weight is light, which I imagine would be for the overhead press for example when you're just starting out, this is how you could warm up:

• 20kg x 5
• 25kg x 3
• 30kg 5 x 5

As the weight gets higher you can add in another warm-up set:

• 20kg x 5
• 30kg x 5
• 40kg x 3
• 50kg 5 x 5
  

It's preferable to take equal jumps in the warm up weight. As you increase the weight, also decrease the number of reps you do, so you don't tire yourself out too much before the work sets. As you become more experienced you can figure out the warm up sets when you're in the gym without needing to write it down.

If possible, perform your warm up sets with no rest in between except for the time it takes to unload/load weight plates onto the bar. This helps your conditioning by getting you breathing a little. If you need to wait 5 minutes between every warm up set something is seriously wrong with you. After your final warm up set, rest however long you need (shouldn't be more than 5 minutes) before your first work set.