This is the second article out of a series of three articles in which I will be addressing the importance of warm-up sets. I believe that warm-up sets can be designed to enhance a specific aspect of training. For example, you can use warm-up sets to increase your training volume, which was discussed in the last article. You can also design your warm-up sets to include some fairly heavy lifting, which is what I will be discussing in this article.
Can warm-up sets really add to the strength building effect? I believe they can if you design your warm-up sets to be carried out in a progressive manner. Warm-up sets aren’t going to give you an instant big gain if that’s what you are looking for, but you can add to your warm-up poundages over time, just like you would add to your work-sets. The result is that your warm-up sets will help achieve an increase in strength.
Warm up to a Moderately Heavy Single Rep
In the last article, I gave the example of a lifter who is doing a basic workout consisting of three sets of eight reps for each exercise. The lifter is using 70% to 75% of his single rep max. This is as much weight as he can manage within the context of his ability to maintain a steady even rep pace for all eight reps of each set. This exact same workout consisting of three sets of eight reps can be combined with different types of warm-ups in different workouts to produce a different effect. The warm-up described in the last article was designed to create more training volume. However, in this article, the focus is on how to design a warm up consisting of fairly heavy weights. This is done by doing the following warm-up sets:
Warm up set 1: 10 reps with an unloaded barbell or light dumbbells
Warm up set 2: 5 reps with 50% of his single rep max
Warm up set 3: 3 reps with 60% of his single rep max
Warm up set 4: 2 reps with 70% of his single rep max
Warm up set 5: 1 rep with 80% of his single rep max
None of the warm-up sets are designed to be taxing in terms of producing a lot of fatigue. This being the case, the lifter should be able to move quickly from set to set without spending a lot of time on his warm-up sets. The same would be true of you if you use the warm-up listed.
Gradually Add Weight to your Warm up Sets
If you do the warm-up listed above, it will challenge your strength to some degree without being so challenging that it takes away from your ability to perform your work-sets. By doing this warm-up two to three times per week for each exercise, you will lay a foundation for heavy lifting that you can gradually build upon over time. This is where the need for patience and planning comes in. If you increase the poundage of each warm up set by five pounds every eight to nine weeks, it will add up to an additional 30 pounds within the time span of a year. These are the type of progressive warm-up sets that gradually drive your strength upward as a means to enhance your work-sets.
Keep it Simple
Sometimes lifters look for a complicated periodization plan in hopes of hitting the jackpot of quick gains when the real key to success is simple; you employ gradual progression in conjunction with weights that your body can handle. Don’t get in a hurry, just add a little weight at a time in order to give your body time to adapt to each addition of weight. If you have the patience to stick with it, you are going to get strong.
In the next article, I will discuss the subject of how you can very your exercises when doing warm-up sets. The purpose of this is to hit your muscles from several different angles in order to bring muscles into play that tend to get overlooked when doing the same exercises the same way all of the time. Best of training to you.