How to Warm Up for Barbell Training
There aren’t really any hard rules when it comes to warming up for barbell training, which is why it can be hard to understand at times. There are however considerations and guiding principles which can help you to make better decisions regarding your warm ups and improve your preparedness for the session ahead.
There are two phases of a thorough warm up: the general and the specific warm up. This article will focus more on weight selection for your specific warm ups, but we’ll briefly touch on the general warm up so you can understand where it fits and the role it plays.
The General Warm Up.
The general warm up includes all of the things you do before you touch the barbell. This will look different for everyone depending on their specific needs but may include a combination of:
Generally warming the body, importantly without doing an all out cardio session. EG, a few minutes of yoga, cycling or rowing.
Mobility drills and dynamic stretches to increase any limiting ranges of motion. EG, mobilising the hips, ankles and shoulders in preparation for low bar squats.
Activation drills targeting the stabilising muscles that assist the prime movers. EG, a plank to engage the core and to practice resisting spinal extension.
Rehabilitation exercises specific to the individual. EG, for me, I stretch my glutes and do some strength exercises for my glutes and hamstrings before each session.
The Specific Warm Up.
The specific warm up refers to the warm ups you perform with the barbell and as mentioned, is going to be the focus of this article.
It should be pretty clear that you can’t just load up your working weight without any preparatory work beforehand. A failed rep and injury is just about a sure thing in this instance. But why? The specific warm up plays a couple of really important roles in preparing you for heavier lifting:
To prepare your nervous system and it’s ability to fire electrical signals to the muscle to recruit muscle fibres
To prepare your muscles, tendons and ligaments for heavier loads
To practice the skill: your warm ups are the perfect opportunity to practice your skill. With a lighter load, you have a greater ability to focus on your technique and to create consistency between reps.
A successful and effective warm up requires a very delicate balance: you want to ensure that your muscles are warm and that your nervous system has been primed for heavier loads, but you don’t want to do too many warm up sets, leaving you fatigued before getting to your top sets.
So how would you pick your warm up weights to satisfy this balance?
Firstly, it’s important to note that planning the right jumps is more of an art than science. How you warm up for your squats may differ from your deadlift and personal preference certainly comes in to play. That is to say that how you warm up may be different from your training partner even if your absolute strength is similar. My best recommendation is to start with the general principles and examples below and refine over time based on how things feel for you. Experiment and make notes on how your warm ups and working sets feel until you find a method that feels best.
General Rules of Thumb.
2-5 warm up sets is about right for most barbell exercises and most people
Perform more reps in your lighter warm ups
Progressively do fewer reps as the load increases
There should be fewer reps in your heavier warm up sets than in your working sets
The jumps you take between weights should be relatively consistent, or get smaller as you get closer to your working weight
Your first warm up weight [after the bar] should be no more than 40-50% of your 1RM
Your last warm up weight should be ~10% less than your working weight
To plan your warm ups, work backwards from your working weight and the last warm up you plan to take.
Factors that would make you do fewer warm up sets.
A relatively simple exercise. EG, fewer warm ups for a barbell bent over row than a deadlift
A relatively light load. EG, fewer warm ups for a 25kg bench press than a 70kg bench press
You are already warm. EG, if you have just finished squatting, you would need fewer warm ups for your RDLs later in the session.
Factors that would make you do more warm up sets.
A more difficult exercise. EG, more warm ups for bench press than bicep curls
Learning technique or low confidence in technique. EG, have only recently started learning to deadlift and need more opportunity for practice
Refining technique. EG, working on a particular element of your squat technique
Heavy loads. EG, more warm ups for a 100kg squat than a 40kg squat
First exercise of the day as you have not been warmed up by any preceding exercises
Cold weather, as your body will likely feel more stiff and will require more movement to warm up your muscles, tendons and ligaments.
A template for choosing warm ups.
I like to plan barbell warm ups in a few steps.
Record working weight.
Record starting weight (usually an empty bar).
Record your first warm up weight after the bar (~50% of your max).
Choose the last warm up you’d like to complete before your working weight. What weight would give you confidence to get to your working set?
Plug the gap with 1-2 warm ups between first warm up and last warm up.
Here are a few examples for demonstration.
Ange is warming up for squats: 8 reps at 60kg. Her 1RM is 85kg.
Her barbell warms ups may follow:
20kg bar x 8 (empty bar)
40kg x 6 (about 50% of her max)
47.5kg x 4 (plugging the gap)
55kg x 3 (confidence builder)
60kg x 8 (working weight)
She is completing between 2-5 warm up sets
Her first warm up weight is around 50% of her 1RM
Her final warm up weight is 10% less than her working weight
Her jumps between loads are consistent or getting smaller
She is performing fewer reps in her warm ups than in her working sets
Sally is warming up for deadlifts: 6 reps at 95kg. Her 1RM is 120kg.
Her barbell warms ups may follow:
20kg bar RDL x 10 (empty bar)
60kg x 6 (50% of her max)
75kg x 6 (plugging the gap)
85 x5 (confidence builder)
95 x 6 (working weight)
She is completing between 2-5 warm up sets
Her first warm up weight is below 50% of her 1RM
Her final warm up weight is ~10% less than her working weight
Her jumps between loads are consistent or getting smaller
She is performing fewer reps in her warm ups than in her working sets
Albert is warming up for deadlifts: 6 reps at 120kg. His 1RM is 170kg.
His barbell warms ups may follow:
20kg bar RDL x 10 (empty bar)
70kg x 6 (~50% of max)
90kg x 4 (plugging the gap)
110kg x 2 (confidence builder)
120kg x 6 (working weight)
He is completing between 2-5 warm up sets
His first warm up weight is below 50% of his 1RM
His final warm up weight is ~10% less than his working weight
His jumps between loads are consistent or getting smaller
He is performing fewer reps in her warm ups than in his working sets
I am warming up for bench: 3 reps at 67.5kg. My 1RM is 72kg.
I did this yesterday and warmed up with:
20kg bar x 8
35kg x 6
45kg x 5
55kg x 3
62.5kg x 1
I am completing between 2-5 warm up sets
My first warm up weight is below 50% of my 1RM
My final warm up weight is ~10% less than my working weight
My jumps between loads are consistent or getting smaller
I am performing fewer reps in my warm ups than in my working sets
As you can see in these examples, there is plenty of room for discretion with both weights selected and reps completed based on the conditions, your individual circumstances and how you’re feeling on the day.
There are however blatant mistakes commonly made in warm ups that I’d obviously encourage you to avoid.
Common mistakes.
Performing too many warm up sets so that you are fatigued for your working sets. Don’t warm up too much.
Not performing adequate warm up sets. One warm up set is not enough. If you are squatting 25kg, you may ask how you can do more warm up sets when the bar is 20kg? You could use dumbbell goblet squats to gradually increase the load or use a lighter barbell if it is available. For bench press, you could do some push ups from your knees or to a bench. Both are very similar movement patterns that would help prime you for your working sets. If you’re doing one warm up set to get to a working weight of 120kg, you’re being lazy or arrogant. Don’t do that.
Not mentally engaging with your warm ups. Your warm ups are your best chance to practice in preparation for the your working sets. If you don’t engage with your warm ups, you risk fumbling your way through your working sets, or finishing your working sets and claiming “I forgot to do X.” By the time you get to your working sets, you should have practiced your technique and engaged with your important cues over your 2-5 warm up sets. Not mentally engaging with your warm up sets is throwing this opportunity out the window.
Rushing your warm up reps so that they don’t even resemble the same movement under heavier loads. This coincides with not mentally engaging with the movement. Take your time and treat your warm ups with respect.
Disregarding breathing and bracing through your warm up sets. While you may not need to brace so hard in your warm ups, it is still part of the technique that needs to be practiced in order to execute clean and consistent reps.
Changing technique as the weight increases. This may occur naturally as the result of fear / lower confidence at heavier loads. However, all efforts should be employed to counteract this by mentally engaging with your warm ups.
Not performing a general warm up. The general warm up is often one of the first things to go when someone is short on time. I can’t discourage this enough. The general warm up is extremely important for injury prevention, improved performance and longevity in barbell training. If you’re running late, your training starts late. You don’t skip your warm up.
Not planning your warm ups ahead of time. You should know what weight you’re working up to and what you want your last warm up to be, then work backwards. This will prevent erratic, inconsistent or just nonsensical jumps between warm ups.
I hope this has provided a little more insight in to the art of warming up and perhaps made it more clear as to why your warm ups are not always set in stone. In a setting like a powerlifting gym where many things do appear black and white / right or wrong, the ambiguity that surrounds warm up selection can be a little disconcerting for someone who likes clear, easy to understand rules. If you do have more questions surrounding your warm up, I would love to hear them!
Billie :)