Abbreviated warmups

[autumnal]

I don't understand time wasted "shuffling plates"? Do you have to walk across the gym to fetch more plates? Is it troublesome to take a 25 off and put a 45 plate on, or just adding 2 tens to the 25?

[Ericreichelt81]

I'm a novice male. 6'2", just now at a 135 squat. I've followed starting strength in the past for some brief, multi-month stints, but always stopped. My last squat work-sets a year ago were 165, and I plan to be back to that in the next few weeks or so.

One of the things that has been a detractor for me has been the suggested warm-up sets. These add a lot of time for me with all the plate shuffling and many short sets before getting to the "real" workout part.

What I've been doing lately is just a few sets of 5 at progressively greater weights that stop quite short of my work sets. Example from last time: 5x45, 5x65, 5x95, then 3x5x135 for the work.

I'd like to continue that, or even make it more abbreviated if possible, so that the overall workout time is not it's own impediment to starting. If I know it's going to take 2hrs, I'll find lots of reasons not to. If I can get through my squats in <30min, I likely will even if I don't get to my OHP or deadlifts, or even come back for them later after a meeting or something.

Questions: How abbreviated can I make the warm-ups? Do any of you do this and can advise?

Goals:
1. For me I just want to be "pretty strong," not worry about getting close to my genetic potential or whatever. 80% of that would probably be fine.
2. I want to do this with minimum time out of my day.
3. I want to reasonably maximize whatever I can out of the novice phase, and reduce calendar time to "pretty strong"

Thanks very much in advance for helping a noob like me.

If you're an adult, this might be the most depressing thing I've heard from a person. The absolute lack of trying is astounding. Somebody shit the bed instilling the lessons of hard shit being hard. Honestly, my 5yr old daughter has you beat on grit and toughness. Wow, this ruined my minute.

[Alexander Rix]

How does it take you 2 hours to work out when you only squat 135? You are incredibly weak unless you are quite old. More likely you are underweight.

5 minutes squat warmup
18 minutes for squats + rest
5 minutes bench warmup
15 minutes press/bench + rest
5 minutes deadlift
2 minutes deadlift set

This is 50 minutes, and I'm giving you 5 minutes rest on your squats.

Do the program. Eat. Get strong. Then you can decide what you want out of training

[Chris McCarthy]

Nice post JC - all this hardcore BS does get to you after a while, it's one thing amongst dyed-in-the-wool Lifters but I imagine it's a huge fucking turn off for anyone else, tongue-in-cheek or not.

Yeah, you can definitely acclimate to lifting hard with very little to no Barbell warm-ups without tearing shit up...seems to me that would be a useful "skill" to have, to be able to turn on everything in very short order, whether you needed to do it frequently or not.

[Tim K]

I was reminded of this thread yesterday upon completing my deadlift warmups and noticing that it had taken me 17 minutes just to get through my final warmup. I then rested 5 more minutes before doing my work set. Part of that was due to deadlifting in a shitty awkward location because the normal spots were occupied so I had to scavenge plates from random places and negotiate obstacles to get them loaded on the bar, but mostly it just takes a while to warm up.

If you want to get strong, it's going to take some time. If you want to get injured, that can be done quickly, I guess.

[Ericreichelt81]

I wasn't trying to sound harcore, quite the opposite in fact. I went away from strength trading due to family and time constraints also. I do more bodybuilding centric work now. This allows me to lift quick and get stronger still, albeit at a slower rate. However, this guy was complaining about taking wright's off the bar, that's just bullshit laziness. He might be best served by letting go of what he thinks he needs to do, and just get after it as best he can while enjoying the process.

[autumnal]

I was under the impression that there were solid reasons behind performing the warmups, such as ramping up the nervous system, warming tissues, getting the synovial fluid going, and practicing the movement.

Since when is doing proper warmups considered "hardcore"?

[George Christiansen]

I was under the impression that there were solid reasons behind performing the warmups, such as ramping up the nervous system.

Since when is doing proper warmups considered "hardcore"?

Exactly.

If the warm ups are too much then please quit. You will get hurt.

And hard core is relative anyway. Compared to a lot of things the SSLP is pretty damned hardcore at the last third of it or so. And that is not even mentioning the psychological side of having to ignore and explain why you squat wrong and such.

So there is a certain level of "manning up" that is required. It's not bullying or whatever to point it out to people so that they don't wast their time.

[mdavis6890]

I'm not trying to avoid doing what is required; I am trying to find out what IS required, given the modified goal of "pretty strong" rather than "maximally strong". I've got a job, wife and 4 kids, so anything I can do to be more efficient is helpful. I also know myself, and that I will put those other priorities ahead of training if training becomes too much of a lift (pun intended).

I figure I'll milk the novice phase for as much as it's worth and then move into maintenance mode, doing again the minimum to maintain my strength at that level. Or who knows, maybe by then I'll enjoy it enough to push farther.

Since my first post I've had a couple more workouts at 145 and 155, so making progress there. I also timed myself with the prescribed proper warmups and it came to around 40min or so for the squats. I also did presses/benches, and a set of 10 chins, but no deadlifts. So maybe an hour or so all-in for that.

I also just weighed myself naked at 167, which is the most I've ever weighed, so making progress on that as well.

[George Christiansen]

[QUOTE=mdavis6890;1588566]I also timed myself with the prescribed proper warmups and it came to around 40min or so for the squats. /QUOTE]

How is this even possible?

If you took 10lbs jumps, which would be ridiculous, you have 45,55,65,75,85,95,105,115,125,and 135. That is ten warm up sets taking 4 minutes each. 5 sets, which is what the book teaches, at 4 minutes would be 20 minutes, which is half of that and still crazy.

I do six or seven warm up sets in less time than that with zero effort at being particularly fast about them, but not taking actual rest periods between them.

Do you have narcolepsy or something?