Squat Warmups

[jtnolen91]

I’ve noticed my first set of squats is my worst of my 3x5 and I’m following a pretty standard warmup. Tonight was the first time I’ve missed a rep and it was on my first set. I made the reps on the 2nd set, then failed again on 2nd. Below is my standard warmup for tonight’s work sets, please let me know a better approach to feel more warmed up on my first set:

Warmups: 280x5, 300x3, 320x2, 340x1
Work sets: 360x4,5,3

[Mark Rippetoe]

You're doing about 3x too much warmup tonnage. This is a basic training principle. If I was going to 360x5x3, I would do 135x5x2, 185x3, 225x1, 275x1, 325x1, 360x5x3.

[Adriano Alves]

I always follow this warmup method:

2x10 empty bar
5 reps 45%
3 reps 65%
2 reps 85%

Rest 5 min and then begin the workout

[Martin Shenfield]

I don't know why you would do sets of 10 with the empty bar. You don't do 10 reps of anything. Just do a couple of sets of 5 with the empty.

Your warm up method that you always follow doesn't match what you posted.

[Maybach]

The purpose of squatting the empty bar is to get blood flowing to the muscles. 10 reps accomplishes this pretty well. You're not practicing 5s with the empty bar.

[Martin Shenfield]

The purpose of squatting the empty bar is to get blood flowing to the muscles. 10 reps accomplishes this pretty well. You're not practicing 5s with the empty bar.

While I get what you are saying, that's not what is in the blue book. Page 299. Every lift is 2 sets of 5 empty bar except the deadlift.

Warming up the tissue and practicing the movement are the two functions of a warm up. It makes no sense to me to do any 10s. He could do 3 sets of 5 if he needs to and save 5 reps. I'm not saying it's hard to do 10. For me, it actually would be hard to go from cold to 10 reps even empty. I'll stay with 5s.

[Martin Shenfield]

My apologies to Adriano and OP in this as I somehow mixed you up. I could blame my mobile viewing experience but really I just need to pay more attention.

That said, I'm still not doing 10 reps with the bar until Rip tells me that's what I should do, but every single video I have watched from SSC's, the training camp I attended and what is written in the blue book is a few empty 5's, then some low rep increasing weights until the working sets.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I have never used 10s for warmups because they don't work as well as 5s.

[Maybach]

Starting Strength camps generally do fives ALL the way up, because the purpose of camps is to give the coaches in charge maximum exposure to your sets of five. This is, as I have learned myself, quite suboptimal for lifting your heavy sets. But then, that's not what you're at the camp to do.

The point of the empty bar warmups is to warm you up. I suppose you could do like, jumping jacks but the bar's already on your back. Why not just squat till you're warm? It's not gonna do anything, unless the bar is too close to your work sets.