Hitting the PRs without proper warm-up is an invitation to injury. Most people underestimate the importance of warm-up before exercising. Usually, people think that it will increase the overall workout time and can be avoided. However, doing such can create a big problem later on in your workout.
Why to Warm-up?
Consider warm-up as a way to wake up your muscles and get ready for lifting some heavy ass weights.
Not only for weight lifting, doing warm-ups before running, yoga or any other physical activity that demands extensive use of muscles can be crucial for optimum performance. Without warming-up, you will find tightness in your muscles, low performance and weak lifts. The tightness in the muscles and joints can lead to injury, and these things must be taken seriously.
When you do a warm-up, you open up your joints as well. This helps in better mobility and flexibility.
It also increases the body temperate to optimum level that is required for workout. You will also see improvements in your movements after warming-up. All these things ensure a safe and better workout session.
How to Warm-up?
Warm up doesn't need to be very rigid or extensive. You need to warm up the body fully that's the main goal. This can be achieved by numerous methods such as:
Dynamic stretches
Walking on treadmill for 5 mins
Using very light weights or just bodyweight for doing few exercises
Using mobility movements
Combining all of these
Some people prefer static stretching before lifting weights. Stretching prior to workout has been shown to have no significance on weight lifting, but it inversely affect the workout session. There have been some research on this as well, and results show that it is not a good idea to stretch before lifting weight.
On the other hand, dynamic stretching can be incorporated in your warm up routine. Contrary to static stretches where you hold a pose for 10 seconds or more, dynamic stretches involves movement. This way, your body get warmed up better.
Walking on treadmill for 5 mins can be an easy option for some people who are in a rush, but it will be more helpful if you can follow the walking with some mobility movements such as deep squats, deep squats to overhead reach, arm-circles, thoracic spine rotation and so on.
A simple Warm-up Routine
Here's a very simple routine that takes about 6-8 minutes to fully warm up your body:
Elliptical Trainer Walk
Do some elliptical walking for abour 2 to 3 minutes on normal pace
Arm Circles
Thoracic spine Extension
Here's a good video on how to do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlstZw2dTHU
Deep squat hold and overhead reach
Deep squat with T-spine rotation
Here's a good video explaining this technique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2xHlIVINHE
Shoulder mobility with PVC pipe or bands
Check this video on how to do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8drTcsh9Loo
All these can be done fairly quickly as you just need to do a warm-up. So, do not regard these exercises as your main workout. They should not tire you. Instead, they should prepare you for the main workout session. Therefore, doing 1 set or 2 set with 6 to 10 reps will be good enough.
Other ways to warmup
If you don't prefer warming up like this, there is another way to do it. It is to go directly to your weight lifting session after doing some treadmill walk. For instance, if you are about to perform Squats, the warm-up routine can start by lifting empty barbell or just body weight squats. This way, you prepare muscle for the big movement. This type of warm-up should be done for heavy weight lifting.
A simple Squat routine can be like this
Let's assume you are going for a 200 lbs squat as your working weight for 5 reps.
So, what you do, start with empty barbell and do 6 to 8 reps.
Do not rest and load the weight about 30% of your main weight and do 5 reps
Increase weight up to 50% and do 4 reps
Increase weight again up to 70% and do 3 reps
Last, increase weight up to 90% and do 1 rep
During this, you don't rest between sets or rest for a very little like 10-15 seconds. This will warm-up you muscle to a level where you can perform the main lift very well.
Happy Lifting!!!
PS: All the images and videos in this post are not made by me. These are just for reference and I give full credit to authors for making these available.
Why to Warm-up?
Consider warm-up as a way to wake up your muscles and get ready for lifting some heavy ass weights.
Not only for weight lifting, doing warm-ups before running, yoga or any other physical activity that demands extensive use of muscles can be crucial for optimum performance. Without warming-up, you will find tightness in your muscles, low performance and weak lifts. The tightness in the muscles and joints can lead to injury, and these things must be taken seriously.
When you do a warm-up, you open up your joints as well. This helps in better mobility and flexibility.
It also increases the body temperate to optimum level that is required for workout. You will also see improvements in your movements after warming-up. All these things ensure a safe and better workout session.
How to Warm-up?
Warm up doesn't need to be very rigid or extensive. You need to warm up the body fully that's the main goal. This can be achieved by numerous methods such as:
Dynamic stretches
Walking on treadmill for 5 mins
Using very light weights or just bodyweight for doing few exercises
Using mobility movements
Combining all of these
Some people prefer static stretching before lifting weights. Stretching prior to workout has been shown to have no significance on weight lifting, but it inversely affect the workout session. There have been some research on this as well, and results show that it is not a good idea to stretch before lifting weight.
On the other hand, dynamic stretching can be incorporated in your warm up routine. Contrary to static stretches where you hold a pose for 10 seconds or more, dynamic stretches involves movement. This way, your body get warmed up better.
Walking on treadmill for 5 mins can be an easy option for some people who are in a rush, but it will be more helpful if you can follow the walking with some mobility movements such as deep squats, deep squats to overhead reach, arm-circles, thoracic spine rotation and so on.
A simple Warm-up Routine
Here's a very simple routine that takes about 6-8 minutes to fully warm up your body:
Elliptical Trainer Walk
Arm Circles
Thoracic spine Extension
Here's a good video on how to do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlstZw2dTHU
Deep squat hold and overhead reach
Deep squat with T-spine rotation
Here's a good video explaining this technique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2xHlIVINHE
Shoulder mobility with PVC pipe or bands
Check this video on how to do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8drTcsh9Loo
All these can be done fairly quickly as you just need to do a warm-up. So, do not regard these exercises as your main workout. They should not tire you. Instead, they should prepare you for the main workout session. Therefore, doing 1 set or 2 set with 6 to 10 reps will be good enough.
Other ways to warmup
If you don't prefer warming up like this, there is another way to do it. It is to go directly to your weight lifting session after doing some treadmill walk. For instance, if you are about to perform Squats, the warm-up routine can start by lifting empty barbell or just body weight squats. This way, you prepare muscle for the big movement. This type of warm-up should be done for heavy weight lifting.
A simple Squat routine can be like this
Let's assume you are going for a 200 lbs squat as your working weight for 5 reps.
So, what you do, start with empty barbell and do 6 to 8 reps.
Do not rest and load the weight about 30% of your main weight and do 5 reps
Increase weight up to 50% and do 4 reps
Increase weight again up to 70% and do 3 reps
Last, increase weight up to 90% and do 1 rep
During this, you don't rest between sets or rest for a very little like 10-15 seconds. This will warm-up you muscle to a level where you can perform the main lift very well.
Happy Lifting!!!
PS: All the images and videos in this post are not made by me. These are just for reference and I give full credit to authors for making these available.