The Lifter’s Guide to Warming Up

Warming up is like saving for retirement. We all know it’s important, but we don’t exactly know why or how we should go about it.

That’s where this article comes in. It’s the ultimate guide you can refer to as it relates to warming up for strength training. Let’s get into it.

Why Warming Up is Important

There are 2 main reasons why we warm up.

First off, it reduces injuries which is great because nobody wants to end up in the hospital or worse becoming a viral video where you snap your leg doing some squats (1,2,3,4).

In addition, warming up can enhance performance which is also great because if your gym crush is watching, she’ll be more impressed with how many reps you do (5,6,7,8). Just kidding, she probably doesn’t even care, but enhancing performance is still cool cause gains brah.

Anyways, from evidence evidence provided, the goal of a warm up is to raise core temperature, improve blood flow, prepare the brain/nervous system, move through intended ranges of motion, and prepare the body for the skill specific task (1).

What About Flexibility and Muscle activation?

 Flexibility and muscle activation are still important, but not as important as you think.

If you already have adequate flexibility for a task, adding more doesn’t actually improve your performance. Simply getting warmer is more important (9). This is why dynamic stretching is so useful in a warm up. While it doesn’t maximize on flexibility improvements like static stretching, it gets the body warm and moving (14). It can also activate muscles, but we’re about to see why that might not even be super important.

The research behind specific muscle activation is a bit conflicting. One promising study shows it can improve movement quality (10).

Another study concluded muscle activation drills to be a poor use of time and advices you to spend more time on protocols that directly improves performance (11). For example, activation drills might be redundant as you’ll be increasing muscle activation anyways during your warm up sets of your first main exercise.

A third study found simply practicing the intended movement was less time consuming and more performance enhancing than activation (12).

For flexibility specific protocols, I’ll only include them when a client is lacking range of motion for a specific exercise. Sprinkling in some static stretching or foam rolling is fine for that. However, if you’re already extremely mobile, adding more mobility/flexibility can actually increase pain and potential for injury (16,17,18).

As for activation drills, I’ve found them to be quite useful in certain situations like for people who sit all day or in injured people who struggle to turn on specific muscles. If you don’t have time or feel they’re redundant, you’ll likely be fine not doing activation drills.

If you do choose to do activation exercises, unilateral or isolation like exercises seem to be best (13).

Awesome Warm Up Template

An ideal warm up will accomplish the key things we just discussed. This is done in 2 main phases which can be broken up into different aspects (5). I know it sounds a bit overwhelming right now, but calm your anxiety down. I promise, it’s simpler than you think to piece together an effective warm up.

The first phase is the general warm up. This is where you prime your body mentally and physically to exercise hard.

The second phase is the specific warm up where you prepare yourself specifically for the intended task or lift.

The entire warm up process should take 5-15 minutes at most. Don’t overdo it.

Here’s how it would look like for a typical lifter trying to make epic gains.

General Warm Up Phase

  1. Anything to increase blood flow and core temperature actively.
    • Low intensity cardio is often recommended (5), but feel free to get creative. Dance, jump rope, or get into a fight with some stranger at the gym. Whatever floats your boat.
  2. Static Stretching or Foam Rolling (optional)
    • This will improve flexibility if you need it without hindering performance (14, 15).
  3. Dynamic Stretching/Movement
    • This prepares your joints and muscles to move through various ranges of motion.

Specific Warm Up Phase

  1. Specific Activation drills (optional)
    • Like discussed earlier, if these help you, you should do them. If not, they’re not crucially necessary.
    • For most people, a glute/ hamstring isolation exercise will be best prior to a lower body workout and a shoulder/back isolation exercise will be best prior to an upper body workout.
  2. Skill Specific Preparation
    • Start light and do multiple submaximal sets. Focus on feeling the right muscles as you dial in your form. Increase weight as you decrease reps until you get to your working set. This ensures you’re ramping up closer towards your working weight without unnecessarily fatiguing yourself.
    • For example if your working weight on your first exercise is 225 for 3 sets of 10, here’s a sample of how you would get there.

Warm up set 1: 45 lbs (empty bar) x 10-15
Warm up set 2: 95 lbs x 8-12
Warm up set 3: 135 lbs x 6-8
Warm up set 4: 185 lbs x 3-5
Warm up set 5: 205 lbs x 1-3

To clarify, this is all done before your first exercise. You can still do some warm up sets for other exercises in your workout if you feel necessary, but in general, the deeper you get into a workout, the less warm up sets you’ll need.

Dynamic Warm Up Examples

Each part of the warm up is pretty self-explanatory except the dynamic stretching. Many people don’t know exactly what to do for this spot. Some random arm circles and leg swings are ok, but here are some much better movements you can use before your first warm up set.

Lower Body

Upper Body

Full Body

Now Start Warming Up

To recap, a warm up will usually include something to increase core temperature like a bit of cardio, followed by general flexibility and dynamic work, and then finished off with more specific preparation for the first lift of the day. As always, experiment with what works best for you prior to lifting. Science gives a guide, but there’s not always an absolute blanket answer.

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  1. Shellock, Frank G., and William E. Prentice. “Warming-Up and Stretching for Improved Physical Performance and Prevention of Sports-Related Injuries.” SpringerLink, Springer International Publishing, 11 Dec. 2012, link.springer.com/article/10.2165%2F00007256-198502040-00004.
  2. Soligard, Torbjørn, et al. “Comprehensive Warm-up Programme to Prevent Injuries in Young Female Footballers: Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), BMJ Publishing Group Ltd., 9 Dec. 2008, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600961/.
  3. Woods, Krista, et al. “Warm-up and Stretching in the Prevention of Muscular Injury.” Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2007, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18027995.
  4. Fradkin, A J, et al. “Does Warming up Prevent Injury in Sport? The Evidence from Randomised Controlled Trials?” Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (UK), June 2006, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16679062.
  5. Behm, David G, and Anis Chaouachi. “A Review of the Acute Effects of Static and Dynamic Stretching on Performance.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21373870.
  6. “Effects of Warming-up on Physical Performance: A Systematic … : The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research.” LWW
  7. Pinfold, Scott C, et al. “The Acute Effect of Lower-Limb Warm-up on Muscle Performance.” Research in Sports Medicine (Print), U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29962240.
  8. McGowan, Courtney J, et al. “Warm-Up Strategies for Sport and Exercise: Mechanisms and Applications.” Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26400696.
  9. Opplert, Jules, and Nicolas Babault. “Acute Effects of Dynamic Stretching on Muscle Flexibility and Performance: An Analysis of the Current Literature.” SpringerLink, Springer International Publishing, 23 Oct. 2017, link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40279-017-0797-9.
  10. Parr, Matt, et al. “Effect of a Gluteal Activation Warm-up on Explosive Exercise Performance.” BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 24 July 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5530111/.
  11. Nadel, Richard Sutton. “The Effects of Different Warm-Up Modalities on Gluteus Medius Activation.” DigitalCommons@URI, digitalcommons.uri.edu/theses/49/.
  12. Barnes, Matthew John, et al. “Effects of Different Warm-up Modalities on Power Output during the High Pull.” Journal of Sports Sciences, U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27398685.
  13. Distefano, Lindsay J, et al. “Gluteal Muscle Activation during Common Therapeutic Exercises.” The Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy, U.S. National Library of Medicine, July 2009, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19574661.
  14. Samson, Michael, et al. “Effects of Dynamic and Static Stretching within General and Activity Specific Warm-up Protocols.” Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, Asist Group, 1 June 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737866/.
  15. Su, Hsuan, et al. “Acute Effects of Foam Rolling, Static Stretching, and Dynamic Stretching During Warm-Ups on Muscular Flexibility and Strength in Young Adults.” Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27736289.
  16. Kumar, Bharat, and Petar Lenert. “Joint Hypermobility Syndrome: Recognizing a Commonly Overlooked Cause of Chronic Pain.” The American Journal of Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, June 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28286166.
  17. “Joint Hypermobility: Association with Musculoskeletal… : Journal of Women’s Health Physical Therapy.” LWW
  18. Steinberg, N, et al. “Joint Range of Motion and Patellofemoral Pain in Dancers.” International Journal of Sports Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, July 2012, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22562733.

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