How do you do your warm up sets. I seen a guy in my gym really jumping up there in numbers off the bat. And he is pretty strong and experienced. I asked him about it and he said that he doesn’t get hurt like that and that he didn’t want to waste energy warming up.
Let’s say I’m going to do 405, this is how I would warm up
I don’t really think that’s bad, if I can do it, then good for me. But I’m making this weekend. 450. And I’d probably warm up like that for it. I’m I hurting myself with so many warm up sets?
That being said, warm-ups are essential. I hate seeing guys start with 315x3 and work their way to 340 and miss. Then complain about their joints and muscle later, and don’t listen to my solution: FUCKING WARM-UP.
When maxing, I take 7-10 sets, evenly spaced (usually 15-30lb jumps) starting from 135. Sets 7-10 are my record breaking attempts. Sometimes I could’ve hit another record by set 11, and sometimes I fail on set 6 because I’m having a bad day. But generally I want 7-10 and 90% of the time I get that. If I’m not maxing, I hit 3-5 warm-up sets. Depends on what weight I’d be using but for something like 250x5x5, I’d do upperbody warm-up, bench the bar for awhile, 135x5, 155x5, 185x3, 225x1, 250x1, then 250x5x5, or whatever workout I was doing.
The idea of warming up is to ready the body and perform quality reps, not pre-exhaust, an entirely different concept. So if someone is getting tired by their max, they have shitty work capacity or are warming-up wrong. The only time form should slip is when the weight is 90%+.
My theory is do a weight until it feels good. Im not sure the word im lookin for, but some days 135 feels heavier/more uncomfortable than others. So ill do another warmup set with that, until it feels light and smooth like it should. Also once i get to about 50% its all singles. Its reps that drain energy, imo.
Also depends on what you do for rolling/stretching/mobility/activation/general warmup too.