warming up

[Atticus182]

hey, i was jus wondering if before i start working out should i do like 10min of cardio 2 get warmed up?

[AndrewH]

whatever floats your boat, bro. that would work, but what i do is for example if today was chest/tri day, warm up by just lifting the bench 1 or sets, then hit the weight

[Merrida]

YES, of course, do a cardio warmup. Try for 15 minutes. That cardio warmup will not make you weaker and in fact you'll find it'll make your lifting session feel stronger. It also is a "buffer" preparing your body for exercise. Doing a light set of high reps isn't the same thing as the benefits you'll get by putting your whole body through a total-body aerobic warmup.

[threenorns]

warm up by just lifting the bench 1 or sets, then hit the weight

good way to damage something.

if you want to do five or ten minutes of EASY cardio to start, that's fine. however, to get the most out of your workout, you need to warm the bodypart up efficiently.

this means you do two sets of 10 - 15 reps with a light weight (about 50% of your working weight or just the empty bar). then you do 4 to 6 very short sets of ever-increasing weight - called "acclimation sets" - to prepare your joints and connective tissues for the coming demand. between each warmup and acclimation set, rest 2 minutes. after the last acclimation set, rest 3 minutes before starting your working sets.

here are two examples:

this is a typical bodybuilder type with a 200lb bench for working weight:

MaxOT:

12 x 100
10 x 100 (faster, with a bit more oomph)
6 x 135
3 x 170
1 x 185

a powerlifter with a 300lb bench might do a system something like the following:

8 x bar
8 x bar
4 x 150
2 x 200
2 x 225
1 x 250
1 x 275

it seems like a lot of work, but because you're working way under your capacity in either reps or weight or both, you're not actually using up much glycogen at all.

note: you do NOT do this for each and every exercise - once a body part's warmed up, why do it again? example, if you've warmed up on flat BB bench press, you don't need to do any warmup sets when you start doing inclines or DB flyes or whatever - just go straight to your working sets.

[cursor]

Peek at this parallel thread: Warm-up help

[Merrida]

One thing I want to bring up.....again,.....about this whole "warming up" thing..... In my opinion, it seems many people concern themselves in a convoluted way with "warming up" the muscle(s) they're about to exercise. And that is all they think about.

I want to make two points:

(1) As 3 brought up in the thread cursor posted a link to, also of very vital concern is the importance of preparing the connective tissues for the impact of weight training, and not just hitting them bluntly with intense overload without any proper preparation. This extends beyond the "muscle" and delves into the importance of how the connective tissues must be "warmed up" and prepared, the ancillary, stabilizing, antagonist muscles....even your skeletal system must at the very least be "alerted" to the fact that......somethings coming!

(2) A "warm-up" in the form of cardiovascular exercise.....are we forgetting a very important muscle involved regardless of what muscles we're cognitively contemplating to train,..... our heart. Your lungs, your vascular system, your brain,.....It really is important to think about how during these 15 minutes of you doing a moderate warm-up on the bike, treadmill, eliptical, or whatever,....you're redistributing, or preparing for redistribution, of hormones, gases,....blah blah blah....and I still am ('spect I always will be) amazed at how few people are either so overly dramatic at how 15 minutes would be such a "waste of their precious lifting time," assuming it invaluable, or neglecting how 15 precious minutes of non-lifting activity (that's the key, folks, for those who are skimming the reading) not only physically benefits your body and will benefit your lifting that day, but also, it psychologically, mentally, buffers you, taking you "FROM" where you've been, and gets all of you, ready to leave what was behind, and get geared for the physical demands, and how everything in your body was functioning, will now be needing to function differently.

Simple....

[cursor]

Thanks for that perspective, Merrida. :