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Abbreviated warmups
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.
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If you think your warmups are taking a long time at 135, wait until you're squatting 4 plates, lol.
I'm confused as to what you think the "recommended" warmup protocol is that apparently takes longer than this.Example from last time: 5x45, 5x65, 5x95, then 3x5x135 for the work.
If I was warming up to 135 I would probably do 5x45, 1x95, 1x115, then the work sets. Are you resting between warmup sets? Don't. Just add the plates and squat. Just rest a bit before the worksets.
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All this. Probably for a while three warmup sets are plenty. I've been going at it for about 20 months, I've probably made ~50% of the increase I can reasonably expect (say started at 185 for squat, can get to 600, currently at about 415) and my workouts can get up to 2 hours on Texas Method volume days. I started with trying to keep workouts short - and managed during early parts of LP up to maybe 275 - but then it started getting much harder, and longer rests and a more thorough warmup were necessary, just so I wasn't taking too large jumps in weight.Originally Posted by Tim K
Last edited by damufunman; 08-08-2017 at 06:57 PM.
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And to give perspective, today I squatted 430x4 and my warmup looked like this:
Air squats x5
45x5
135x5
225x2
315x1
365x1
405x1
Takes a while but it sure beats getting injured. Deadlift warmups take even longer, because not only is the weight heavier but the bar is slower to load and it takes time to chalk, etc.
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You're overthinking it....
I always shoot for 5-6 warmup sets of squats...
1-2 sets of 5 reps empty bar, 1 set of 5 reps, 1 set of 3 reps, then the rest singles.
Last warmup is +/- 80pct of target work set weight.... Figure out the difference between 45 and that, add enough to the bar each time shooting for nice round numbers that can be built by adding plates without removing any.
Say you're going to hit 140x3x5, try adding 20lbs to each warmup set...
45x5
45x5
65x3
85x1
105x1
125x1
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Assuming you have the opportunity to get reasonably warm and limber before even touching a weight I'd probably do a few reps with the bar and then a few with 95 before cracking on with 135.
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That warm-ups take time is part of the reason why most people avoid barbell lifts, because their (uneducated) instinct is to do 0-2 warmup sets and then get straight to the working sets so that they can do more exercises. Which is far more daunting for heavy squats than if you include the warm-ups along with knowledge that you can adjust based on the warmups if you're totally fucked one day.
Minimal warm-up doesn't work well for most people for building up a barbell lift, because progressing technique, groove and confidence under the bar is a large part of the linear progression, and having enough warm-up sets helps with all of that.
Just do the warm-up sets as prescribed, once your working weights get heavy, you'll start understanding the significance of them for yourself.
If you want to cut time, I'd instead make warm-ups part of the routine and do something like an ascending 5x5 which is something like 60%*5, 70%*5, 80%*5, 90%*5, 100%*5 along with 0-2 back-off sets at 90%. This won't work as well as 3 sets of 5 across though, so reserve it for days where you know you don't have enough time. Cutting out warm-ups is not a good way to save time. If you want to save time, cutting volume AND/OR making warm-ups part of the volume AND/OR cutting exercises are far more reasonable adjustments to save time than cutting warm-ups.
Last edited by perman; 08-09-2017 at 03:02 AM.
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That's 5 warm-up sets though, perfectly in line with what people have been saying here. Even if you use simple warm-up schemes, that still tends to end around 4-6 sets if you use reasonable increments. For press I go 20, 30, 40, 50, work sets, while for bench press I go 20, 40, 60, 80, work sets. Meaning you choose the appropriate simple plate increments, whether that's 10, 20, 30 or 40 kg and consider that close enough.
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Maybe a whole-cloth re-evaluation of training goals and commitment level is in order.
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tl;dr: Don't.
Longer version: Shorting the warm up sets now might work, but you'll definitely need them as the weight on the bar increases. They're an essential part to learning the lifts, finding where your personal limits are for a working set, and helping to get that essential form down.
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