THE MEATHEAD’S WARM UP
Most guys come into the gym and grasp the bar or a pair of dumbbells and do a light set of 15–20 reps. Then they go a little heavier and cut the reps down a bit. They’ll do one more set and, now that they’re sweating, figure they’re ready to go. While this is hardly the best way to prep your body, it
does serve the purpose most of the time, assuming you’re not training too heavy. But take it a little slower and more deliberately, and you’ve got a more decent warmup routine for when you’re doing one of our lifting workouts and need to get done in a hurry. Here’s how to warm up for a heavy strength workout that begins with a barbell exercise. More accurately, this is called “working up” in powerlifting circles, because the goal is to gradually work your way up to using the heaviest weights possible. You start with the empty bar and perform 10–15 reps with perfect form and then ad weight in moderate increments until you’re at the maximum load you plan to lift on the exercise.
There’s no exact formula for how to do this, so the weights and reps above aren’t mandatory, but the idea is to start very light, pump some blood into the working muscles and lubricate the joints, and then add weight steadily until you comfortably arrive at the heaviest load you can use for the target reps. The reps on these work-up sets are kept low (after the first set or two) because you need to conserve energy for the main effort, the work set. These sets also serve to reinforce good technique, so the form on the exercise is fresh in your mind and the body is in its groove to do it properly when you get to a challenging load.
How long should you rest between sets? Since work-up sets aren’t as taxing as your main work sets, you shouldn’t need to rest long. A minute or so will be fine for most until you get up to heavy weights, at which time you can rest longer. There are a few tricks you can employ to make this
process even more effective and make your top set even heavier, or at least feel easier. Try doing your last work-up set a little heavier than the main set, but only for one or two reps, so it’s not too strenuous. Then back down to the weight you intend to use for the work set.
In other words, you gradually work up to an even heavier weight, reducing your reps to minimize fatigue, and then go back down to 275. The set with 300 might be way more than you can handle for five reps, but done for only one, it will feel relatively easy. By comparison, 275 will feel much easier when it’s done afterward. Obviously, this won’t work on super-heavy sets when your target reps
are in the 1–3 range, but it’s great when they’re between 4 and 8.
Another trick, which we learned from Jason Ferruggia, a strength coach in Los Angeles, CA, is to back the weight down for a set before you reach your target. This works well if you’re trying to hit a new max (one rep), which can be very intimidating. The weight tends to feel very heavy at around 90 percent of your max, and it can dissuade you from going any heavier. By going a bit lighter for a set and then working your way back up, you give your nervous system more time to adapt. The weight
feels lighter, so you feel more confident, and the rest of the way up to your max weight goes smoother.
To be clear, working up is not optional. Because it can be time consuming, if you have time for only one kind of warmup, this should be it. But we strongly suggest that, whenever possible, you employ one of the other options we list here beforehand. Incidentally, working up applies to training with
kettlebells/dumbbells, a suspension trainer, and bands as well. Start with light resistance, gradually tapering your reps as you up the intensity.
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