My first meet is coming up on August 11th and I’m curious what your preferred warm-up progression is at a meet and what sort of attempt progression you use from attempt to attempt.
I feel that in general I probably go through a longer warm up than most, especially with my squat. When I took my openers yesterday, my squat warm up was:
This is significantly shorter than what I usually do, I was just curious what you guys think of that progression from looking at it and how you might tweak it/improve it come meet day. Obviously I want to get warm without spending too much energy doing it.
Regarding picking attempts, if everything goes as planned (doubtful, from everything I’ve read), right now I think I’m looking at:
Squats:
167.5 kg (369.2 lbs)
177.5 kg (391.2 lbs)
185.0 kg (407.7 lbs)
Bench Press:
115.0 kg (253.5 lbs)
120.0 kg (264.5 lbs)
125.0 kg (275.5 lbs)
Deadlift:
182.5 kg (402.2 lbs)
190.0 kg (418.8 lbs)
197.5 kg (435.3 lbs)
For reference, my current gym max’s are 405 in the squat, 260 paused in the bench (quite easily completed the last time I attempted it 3 weeks ago), and 425 in the deadlift.
I’m mostly interested in hearing what people with meet experience do in terms of their warm ups and attempt progression, and how my initial plan looks for my attempts. Obviously things may changed depending on how each attempt feels, but right now I think that’s what I’m looking at.
The more meets I’ve done, the fewer warm ups I do. Things can get busy and stressful in the warm up room and vying for time on a platform can add unnecessary stress. Because I’m female, my starting weights are lower but my typical warm up would be:
Squat
bar or not depends on number of people warming up
135-few
185-couple
215-1
245- couple add suit bottoms
275-1 straps up
295-300 first attempt
Bench
bar
95-few
115-couple
135- few add shirt
155-1
165 first attempt
DL
135-5
225-2
275-1
305-1
335 first attempt
Regarding attempts. I always open light and make large jumps (except for bench at which I suck). You should open at something you can do on a very bad day. If you don’t get your opener, that, again adds stress and makes the rest of it more difficult. Once you get your first in, you start flying.
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
I feel like doing anything with less than a plate is a waste of time (for everyone in the warmup room) unless you are unusually weak or a female.[/quote]
Yea, that makes sense. I’d rather not be a douche squatting the bar to get loose with other people wanting to warm up at the same time. Good point; thanks.
Well I think warmups should be taken seriously and can make a big difference.
I like to do something like:
bar for 3 sets
1 plate for 2 sets
Then jump to:
50% x3
60% x3
70% 2x2 (If lifting raw can do just one set. If you put on suit bottoms here then 2nd set very necessary)
80% x2
90% x1
100% - opener IE these percentages based on opener which will be like ~88% of max.
This is for someone with an opener of say 170-220kg.
I think your warm-up attempts look pretty, although you warmed up and did 365 and 385, your opener is 370 so obviously you would not do those last two attempts in the warm-up room but stop at 345. I think your attempts for squat look good.
Your bench attempts look to close IMO, I would drop the opener by 2.5-5 kg. For bench I would warm-up
45x5
95x5
135x3
165x3
195x1-3
225x1
opener 245ish
Your dead attempts also look pretty close together. The benefit of having the weight close together is that you don’t leave pounds on the table, the negative is that they definitely tire you out, I would go 380, 413, 435. I have found that 87.5%, 95%, and 100% for meet attempts works great most of the time. For DL w/u I would go
135x5
225x3
275x3
315x1
350x1
opener
Good luck with your meet, let me know if you have any questions
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
I think your warm-up attempts look pretty, although you warmed up and did 365 and 385, your opener is 370 so obviously you would not do those last two attempts in the warm-up room but stop at 345. I think your attempts for squat look good.[/quote]
Thanks Tim, and yea, I just copied and pasted my squat workout right from my log but included the last two sets which weren’t warmups.
Regarding my attempts being close together, I agree. I guess my reasoning behind it is that those are all numbers I know I can hit without much struggle, so I figured I’d at least start there. I know a lot of people have a meet goal, then work back from there (like using % of goal for the first two attempts), but I guess the way I did it is find an opener that I know I’ll hit, then move forward from there using fairly small increases.
I’m not sure if that’s a bad strategy or not, but as it’s my first meet, I guess I don’t really have proven method of projecting what I might be capable of on my third attempt. With that in mind, I wanted to at least open with a solid number and go from there.
I guess I wouldn’t really be hurting myself by lowering my openers, I just wanted to make sure my openers were close enough to my second attempt so as not to shock myself with a heavier weight, which I guess I’m somewhat concerned about because on normal days I do a lot of warm up sets slowly progressing to my work weights. So I generally take very small step ups in weight during my training days.
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
I think your warm-up attempts look pretty, although you warmed up and did 365 and 385, your opener is 370 so obviously you would not do those last two attempts in the warm-up room but stop at 345. I think your attempts for squat look good.[/quote]
Thanks Tim, and yea, I just copied and pasted my squat workout right from my log but included the last two sets which weren’t warmups.
Regarding my attempts being close together, I agree. I guess my reasoning behind it is that those are all numbers I know I can hit without much struggle, so I figured I’d at least start there. I know a lot of people have a meet goal, then work back from there (like using % of goal for the first two attempts), but I guess the way I did it is find an opener that I know I’ll hit, then move forward from there using fairly small increases.
I’m not sure if that’s a bad strategy or not, but as it’s my first meet, I guess I don’t really have proven method of projecting what I might be capable of on my third attempt. With that in mind, I wanted to at least open with a solid number and go from there.
I guess I wouldn’t really be hurting myself by lowering my openers, I just wanted to make sure my openers were close enough to my second attempt so as not to shock myself with a heavier weight, which I guess I’m somewhat concerned about because on normal days I do a lot of warm up sets slowly progressing to my work weights. So I generally take very small step ups in weight during my training days.
[/quote]
Your plan sounds pretty logical and well thought out. Once you do establish some numbers you might find then working backwards from a goal weight works well. The other minor thing to consider is doing 3 events with all of the lifts pretty close to together is tiring. I would drop your bench opener if your current best is 260, even if it felt easy when you did it.
I’ll second Tim telling you to drop your bench. By the time I got to my third bench, I was tired and struggled to lift it. I had destroyed it in the gym a couple weeks before, but in a meet it’s a completely different ball game.
My warm ups for my meet were the same that I do in the gym. Eddie told me to treat it just like another day in the gym. That calmed my nerves and made my warm-ups go better. My squats looked like this:
2 X 5 X 135
1 X 3 X 225
1 X 1 X 275
1 X 1 X 315
Then my opener was 346 (something along those lines).
Bench was:
2 X 6 X 135
1 X 3 X 185
1 X 2 X 225
Opener was 254.
Deadlift:
2 X 5 X 135
1 X 3 X 225
1 X 2 X 275
1 X 1 X 315
1 X 1 X 330
Opener was 374.
Since we’re pretty much on the same strength level, I suggest keeping your warm-ups short.
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
I have found that 87.5%, 95%, and 100% for meet attempts works great most of the time. [/quote]
OP, this is a very sound advice, listen to it!
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
I have found that 87.5%, 95%, and 100% for meet attempts works great most of the time. [/quote]
OP, this is a very sound advice, listen to it![/quote]
Definitely great advice. If you follow these guidelines there isn’t any reason you shouldn’t go 9/9.
I only compete push/pull but I tend to do a max of 4 warm-up sets with the last single rep being 85% of my opener, but like anything with training you must find what works best for you. I used to warm-up with 7 sets but found that it was too much for me. With my current system I break my meet PR’s at every meet. Best of luck in your upcoming competition!