Transcription
Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. My name is Alec Bennus and this week's video is all about warm-ups.
Whether you're warming up for a strength session, cardio session, or competition, this video has some evidence-based and practical recommendations for you. Now, even if you feel good about what you're currently doing to prepare for your workouts, this video is going to address some common myths, misconceptions, not only about warm-ups, but also uh injury and pain management, um skill acquisition, and more. So, stick around. Hopefully, you'll learn something.
So, the first variable we want to think about with a warm-up is someone's actual training time. To have a proper discussion about warming up, there's three main variables that we need to talk about. The first is someone's actual training time. The most important thing to remember here is that time spent preparing to train is time spent not training, which potentially means leaving fitness gains on the table. Most people have very limited time and energy they're willing to commit to the gym with their busy lives, schedules, possibly commuting to the gym. So, if someone has a fixed 60 minutes they're able to allocate to the gym and they spend 20 minutes of that warming up, that leaves them 40 minutes of quality training time. If we could cut that warm-up in half and still preserve a high quality session, that's going to give them 25% more effective training volume that day, and that's going to stack up over the course of their training week, month, and year. and they're going to end up getting better adaptations in the long run than someone who has to spend more time just getting ready to feel good enough to start getting in a workout. So, whatever benefit a warm-up routine might have on paper, we have to weigh that against that opportunity cost. So, if a warm-up, for example, improves training quality or performance by 1%, 2%, 3%, we have to ask ourselves, is that worth potentially a 20% reduction in training volume over time? Exact numbers are going to differ person to person, obviously, but that opportunity cost is something that is often not part of the conversation with warm-ups like it should be.
The second variable to think about with a quality warm-up is what it does to someone's training quality. Now, with quality, what I really mean is the adaptation that someone's going to get from that session. I don't necessarily mean how much weight is on the bar, how fast they're able to run, or even what they feel like while they're doing it. I mean objectively, how effective is that workout going to be for allowing to come back stronger the next time. I think it's important to differentiate between training quality and some of the things like uh sensation or how workout feels or exact performance metrics because they aren't exactly the same thing. And it's possible that a warm-up might make you feel a little bit better going into the workout, but it doesn't necessarily change the adaptation that you get from that workout. Similarly, your ability to push one or 2% heavier or faster in a workout doesn't necessarily mean that you're adapting any more positively to that workout itself. In fact, I think sometimes strategies that people use to get more aroused or amped up going into a session, caffeine, warm-ups, etc., it can heighten their performance in that workout, but that could just mean that they train harder and they have a higher recovery cost, not necessarily that they're going to adapt more positively to that session. That signal might be fully saturated potentially. Uh, now warm-ups can improve training quality, but as we get into the rest of this video, I want you to keep that distinction and those concepts in mind that training quality uh can diverge from some of those other things like, you know, how you feel during a workout, and what kind of weight is on the bar.
So, the last main variable to think about is your actual performance. So, the weight you're able to lift, the speed that you're able to run, etc. If you're training for a competition, if you're in competition especially, but also in that kind of final competition preparatory phase, your actual performance matters a lot. And so the ability of a warm-up to optimize that performance, get you that extra 1% edge or 2% edge can be significant. Now, I'm out of breath. Now, I mentioned before that training quality might not necessarily be affected that much by warm-up. We'll get into that more later, but actual performance can. And so if you are competing, even if you're not in competition today, using training as an opportunity to dial in the strategies that are going to be the most effective for maximizing performance on competition day can certainly be a good use of your time. You want to make sure that you've tested and teen what works for you. So when you show up on race day or meet day, you know exactly how to get the most out of your body. Even if those strategies aren't strictly necessary from a day-to-day training perspective, it might still be worth the practice uh at least some somewhat often in training. With these three variables, opportunity cost, training quality, and performance, there's obviously a lot of things to consider when it comes to how we optimize a warm-up based on what your goals are and what limitations you might have. Now, you're probably already wondering what training through aches, pains, injuries, movement limitations, mobility restrictions, what that has to do with warm-ups and how that factors into the conversation. Don't worry, we're going to get there.
Now, before we move on, I want to address a very important point. And for the average person watching this video, this is probably the most important thing I will say all day. And that is the common advice that I hear. If you don't have time to warm up, you don't have time to train is probably the worst fitness advice I have ever heard. For the average person that's not even meeting exercise or physical activity guidelines, creating additional barriers to entry, like a higher buying cost with a required warm-up, I think is a public health disservice. We have a lot of great data on short duration exercise and what people are calling exercise snacks in the literature that shows that even very short bouts of training with zero warm-up at all has robust health effects and is very safe. For example, there are studies that look at stair climbing intervals and even things like 30 second allout bike sprints with zero warm-up whatsoever. And people get great results and serious health benefits from those very short warm-up free routines. You can drop down right now and give me a set of push-ups and that's going to be very safe even without a significant warm-up. Now, that doesn't mean you can do anything without a warm-up with no risk. I wouldn't suggest trying to set a one rep max and a snatch or run an allout 100 meter dash with zero warm-up at all. So, if you only have a couple of minutes to train, there's certain exercises and certain styles of training that are going to potentially be off the table, but there's always something that you can do and you always have time to train. The idea that you have to warm up or that if you don't have time to warm up, you don't have time to train, I think is absolutely ridiculous.
So, when people talk about warm-ups, there's often a lot of focus on things like blood flow, increased nerve conductivity, and a lot of kind of tissue level physical stuff going on, but it's a lot more than that. It's a biocschosocial process. And by that, I mean, it's more than just that physical stuff. There's psychological factors and even social factors that can make a warm-up beneficial. And those factors often are not going to be fully captured by some of the data and studies that I'm going to explore later in this video. For example, just having a ritual of some kind that you go through prior to training or prior to competition can become an important habit that just primes you or gives you that conditioned response that hey, it's go time. you know, every time I start doing, you know, some leg swings or something before uh a race, I know that I'm about to have to perform. And so, mentally, that primes me uh to be ready for the day, even if physically it's not necessarily doing anything all that special. Similarly, social factors, especially in a group or team setting, a very simple, generic warm-up might not be doing anything super special on a tissue level, but it can set the stage, set the tone for the day, give teammates an opportunity to bond and talk in a way that they might not have if they're just jumping into uh, you know, optimal training right out of the gate. So, when I'm talking about some of the warm-up stuff today, I'm mostly going to be talking about what is ideal, you know, from a tissue perspective. But I do want you to keep in mind the biocschosocial element of it. And if there's, you know, reasons that you can think about that a warm-up might be a good idea beyond some of the tissue level stuff, I'm all for that. Um, you know, especially if it's something that gives you that ritual element, helps with your mindset, or just is fun and, you know, makes training a little bit more enjoyable. I think that's totally fine.
I used to be super rigid, super locked in um with very specific and and longer warm-up routines. I was very specific and intentional about exactly what I ate in the days leading up to a competition and the morning of what time I woke up. Um everything was like super dialed. Um but I started to find that I just couldn't always do those things, but it wasn't always practical. uh if I was traveling to different time zones or uh different places with different equipment, you know, I couldn't always stick to that plan that I um had taught myself to and it's starting to hurt my performance and cause a lot a lot of psychological distress. So, I think we have to be really careful with warm-up rituals. Um and make sure that we have one that's adaptable, simple, we can take with us anywhere, do anytime um otherwise we can potentially see those backfire. And that leads me into the entire concept of noibo which is basically the negative version of placebo. So everyone knows the placebo effect. You know you believe that something works and just your belief in that thing makes it so. Mibo is kind of the opposite in that if you believe something is harmful it can cause real meaningful harm. And we see this a lot in the training space where people think that uh either certain exercises are dangerous or they think that certain uh interventions whether it's uh getting a massage or doing a special warm-up routine or a special exercise, they think that those things have benefits and they think that not doing those things is harmful. And just that belief that not doing those things is harmful can be enough to make it harmful when those things aren't done. So, if you're someone who believes this warm-up routine is super beneficial, you're going to be that same person who experienced legitimate harm when that warm-up routine is taken away from you, regardless of what the real evidence says about its its real effects. So, we have to be really careful with nobo. I think a lot of times in the fitness industry, we're always looking for things to get that competitive edge, that next 1% and feel a little bit better. But all of those things that we reach for have that dark side that when we take them away, they can cause legitimate harm. And I would much rather just have the freedom and flexibility to focus on the things that really work and have more belief in myself uh and less dependence on a lot of other things that don't really matter.
So, when it comes to gym warm-ups, there's two main categories of warm-ups that people will talk about. There's a general warm-up and a specific warm-up. A general warm-up is really anything that just gets your body temperature elevated. And you know, people will talk about things like blood flow and joint lubrication and all these things, but it's really stuff that it doesn't matter that much what it is. It's just doing something to get your heart rate up, prime the nervous system, get you prepared um to exert yourself at a high level. Then there's a specific warm-up, which really just means the activity that you're actually doing, the lift that you're actually going to do, working through sets of that exercise, starting with lighter sets, progressing to heavier sets. Now, sometimes in that bucket of specific warm-up exercises or specific warm-ups, people will do uh slightly different variations or versions of the main lift designed to emphasize different elements of it. whether it's trying to prime uh muscle activation uh in certain muscles that they want to work in target exercise or they'll use different constraints uh modifications of that exercise to encourage the position or the form that they're going for with the main lift. I consider all that uh to be in that specific warm-up bucket.
Now, when it comes to general warm-up, uh the data is pretty clear that general warm-ups are not very special or very necessary. Um both for aerobic exercise and for strength exercise, we have pretty clear data that as long as you have a sufficient specific warm-up, you're doing enough lighter sets of any given exercise before you get to your heaviest sets, your performance is going to be just fine. general warm-ups generally don't tend to work that well in the literature. That being said, there are some reasons that I might still include. Uh, one, I think that there's things that people might look at and call a warm-up that actually do have some, you know, adaptations taking place. Um, for example, doing some light plyometric exercise. People might see someone doing some light hops or skips or something like that and think that it's a very general warm-up, but I think that from some of those impacts, contacts, even lower to moderate intensity contacts, you're still getting some adaptive stimulus from that. And it's something you can progress and build on over time. So, there's ways that we can manipulate really just exercise order, placing certain elements of a workout at the beginning of a workout in such a way than it might look like a general warm-up, but I think there's still some adaptation taking place. And it just makes the barrier to entry for that workout a little bit lower. It's easier to start a workout with some light hops and skips than to immediately start squatting really heavy. So, if that is something that you want to do, I think that's totally fine. And I wouldn't not do it on account of some of the general warm-up data. The other reason I might do a journal warm-up is if it's extremely early in the morning. I think sometimes the studies don't properly account for that. They're usually not pulling people uh out of bed at 4:00 a.m. into the lab at 4:15. But if you're someone that works out super super early, you might just want a little bit longer of a general warm-up literally just to wake up um before you start doing real heavy things. Um so that's another case. And then the third case would be if it's if your body temperature is unusually cold. If you're training in the winter or you're training out in the cold garage, for example, that's another uh specific use case that I don't think is really captured in some of the data, you do want to elevate your body temperature. And if you're already, you know, in a normal conditions gym, you maybe walked uh, you know, past the front desk and got into the gym, your body temperature is probably already close to decent temperature and a specific warm-up will be enough to get you to that, you know, optimal working temperature or at least close enough to have a good workout. But if you're coming in from the cold, I used to uh walk to the gym in the winter in Minnesota and sometimes I'd get to the gym literally freezing and it would take me an extra 5 or 10 minutes of light activity just to uh feel normal again. So if you do want a general warm-up um that fits any of those criteria, feel free. Otherwise, I would jump right into something a little bit more specific.
Now, when it comes to specific warm-ups, I mentioned that some people will do different variations or use different constraints. Uh, especially when it comes to working on skill development, working around aches and pains or injuries, trying to activate certain muscles before their main lift. I'm going to talk about that uh aspect of a warm-up a little bit more uh after this portion, but for now, I just want to focus on uh how to actually warm up a lift. Assuming nothing is going on, you feel good, you just want to walk in and do a shoulder press or walk in and start squatting. You know, how do you work up to your working weight for the day in a way that's going to give you a good workout, but also be time efficient? Um, in general, I think it depends largely on your training level. Um, and potentially if you have done much of a general warm-up already, if you've done a general warm-up, your specific warm-up can probably be a little bit shorter. Your body temperature is already going to be a little bit higher. you're probably going to just feel a little bit more ready to go. Where if you're starting with that main exercise, a little bit cold, you might want a few more extra light sets just to get moving a little bit more. The other uh thing it depends on is training experience, fitness level, and overall strength. Generally, bigger, stronger, more experienced athletes are going to need a few more warm-up sets to feel good before getting to their top working set compared to someone who's relatively novice or or relatively untrained. Most untrained or novice exercisers can get up to a working weight, especially on machine-based exercises that have not very much skill component within one or two quick feet or sets we call them. On the other hand, a more experienced stronger individual, they might want to take a couple more jumps. The other thing it depends on is the complexity of that exercise. Higher skill exercises, just take more sets to get your skill and feel dialed in for the day. see how the body is feeling. Work out kind of where different spots are tight and loose, where there's tension, and just get the skill feeling sharp for the day. Even if from a local tissue level, your quads and your uh patellar tendons and everything are ready to handle a one rep max load for a squat, for example. If you just hop under a one rep max squat without any sort of warm-up, your skill, your technique is not going to be super sharp and you might not be as successful with that lift as you would if you had gotten some practice sets, gotten technique locked in on the day. That's also going to change depending on training status. The stronger you are at a high skill lift, the more warm-up sets you're going to want to take, the more feeder sets you're going to want to take to get to that working level. Now, this is kind of a double-edged sword. Stronger, more experienced athletes and higher skill lifts tend to require more feeder sets for optimum performance, but you also run the risk of developing or incurring a lot of fatigue along the way. For that reason, if you're someone who's very strong, you're working up to a 600 lb squat for the day, for example, I think more warm-up sets, but smaller warm-up sets with longer rest generally is a more effective strategy. That could be as little as doing two or three reps, resting a minute, two or three reps, resting a minute at progressively heavier loads. None of those sets particularly challenging, but giving yourself plenty of sets along the way to get those skills sharpened. On the other hand, if you're a little bit less experienced or it's an exercise that has less of a skill component, like a stable machine exercise, you could potentially just do one moderate set, you know, 10 reps at a six out of 10 effort, rest a minute, and then be ready to go. So, there's no golden rule of thumb or chart that you should follow um every athlete for every single lift. I think you have to learn to get that dialed in by feel and it's going to change depending on the exercise and depending on um the strength of the athlete. For me, I like to see at least kind of my uh top warm-up set, if you will, a set at about 80 to 85% of whatever my planned working weight for the day is. So on the shoulder press here, for example, if I'm planning to get to uh like 180 lbs, give or take, would be a good working set for me, you know, about 80 85% of that is probably going to be like 140 or 150. I'm probably going to do one moderate set at that weight. Kind of see how it feels and then make the decision. Do I want to use the weight that I usually do? How did that warm-up set feel compared to last week? And from that feedback, I can decide if I want to potentially try a weight increase or not. Um, so I at least think that top theater set is important. But all the sets prior to that, are you going to do one or two very light sets or four to five moderate sets is going to be an individual decision.
One of my favorite simple ways to kind of combine some of the benefits of a general warm-up with a more specific warm-up is rather than start with exercise A, for example, and do a lot of warm-up sets of exercise A, do my working sets of exercise A, and then move on to exercise B, C, D, and so on, is I'll just walk in the gym and I'll do one kind of warm-up circuit where I do a light a light set of a lot of the exercises or all of the exercises I'm going to do that day and then I start getting into some of the heavier uh warm-up sets and working sets of that first main exercise. So, for example, today if I'm going to do some bench press, rows, buys, tries, some shoulders, I might come in do one quick light set of all five or six of those exercises. Takes me five or six minutes. By the time I've done that, I've kind of gotten a nice general warm-up, too. Uh, and then by the time I cycle back to that first exercise, like a heavy bench, I've already been moving around for five or six minutes. I feel pretty warm. I'm able to get into that um those working sets a little bit faster.
On the cardio side, one of my favorite warm-up studies was a very simple design where they had two groups warming up for a 3minut allout time trial. Now keep in mind 3 minutes very short, very intense. If there's anything that you're going to want to warm up sufficiently for, it's going to be something like that 3minut allout effort. The two groups that they had, one did a 10-minute low inensity general warm-up, easy running, and then they did 10 60 meter progressive uh submaximal sprints, starting at a moderate pace, finishing at a hard pace. So, that group 10 minutes easy, then 10 by 60 m, then 3 minutes all out. The second group did the same 10x 60 meter progression, but they skipped the 10-minute uh general warm-up completely. The 10x60 meter group did just as well. There was no difference in performance. No benefit from doing the 10 minutes of low inensity steady state prior to the higher intensity progressive specific warm-up for a 3minut allout running time trial. Now, I think this is very important um because it's not suggesting that doing low inensity steady state is bad. That group didn't do any worse. And I think long-term in terms of, you know, acrewing an extra 10, 15 minutes of low inensity cardio at the beginning of sessions. Longterm, you could accumulate a significant amount of time by even just having a little bit of cardio built into a warm-up routine. So, I don't think that's a bad idea. And in fact, most of my running workouts start with about two miles of easy running. Two miles of easy running for me, 5 to seven days a week. That's 10 to 14 miles worth of my weekly volume. I'm definitely getting a stimulus from that. Even if it's not necessary for doing a productive highintensity work in some of my workouts. So, we do have to separate the uh additive benefit of just accumulating work in a warm-up with the kind of specific performance enhancing qualities of the warm-up. But in this case, just something as little as 10 by 60 m progressive intervals before a 3minut time trial was sufficient to maximize their performance.
In a separate study, they looked at uh doing a similar uh about 10-minute gradual warm-up that then included 3x 250 meter intervals or not prior to racing an allout 5k. Now, this was in well-trained college distance runners. And they found that the group that added in 3x 250 m intervals were able to improve their 5k time by about 6 seconds on average. Now, that doesn't sound earthshattering, but for performance, for a race, going from 15 minutes in the 5K at a 1454 is a huge advantage. So, something as simple as adding a few spikes of intensity to a general uh I'm sorry, to a specific running warm-up is a great idea. So, any cardio that you're doing is going to follow that same principle. A little bit of low inensity work is certainly not going to hurt. It may have benefits in terms of just volume accumulation across a week, but when it comes to your ability to perform in highintensity sessions, what really matters is gradual progressive exposure to some of those higher intensities. Anytime you're going to do a higher intensity output, 3minut time trial, 5k race, you generally want to have some progressive intensity. That is if you want to perform at your absolute best. Now, importantly for just a general training stimulus, your ability to run 1454 versus 15 flat in a 5k matters in competition doesn't matter so much from your ability to just get a good quality workout in. So, for that reason, in a lot of general workouts, you might see that longer steady state warm-up, jump right in some intensity. You don't have to optimize every detail, do the highintensity progressive bit um just to get a good workout for the day. So keep that in mind. Training versus competition, two different things. But if you do want to get some experience preparing for competition, figure out what works for you and develop a little bit of that pre-ompetition ritual. I think having a fairly dialed in um but simple warm-up routine for cardio, whether that's a couple of strides or sprints or surges, doing that on your high intensity days is a good idea just to get in the habit and practice what's going to work for you on competition day.
The common theme between strength training and endurance training really is that general warm-up doesn't have a lot of good supporting data other than potentially volume accumulation. And the fact that a lot of warm-up exercises actually do impart a training stimulus. So, if you can make a case for it that way, again, some of the plyometric stuff comes to mind. Maybe even doing certain accessory lifts first or in the case of some runners, they like to do some of their isometric training, for example, pre-run. I think that's great. Not so much as a necessary part of a warm-up, but it's just good training. And if it feels good to do prior to the rest of your workout, I think that's fine and really just efficient, good use of your time. What really stands out as a common overlapping theme though between strength and endurance training is that the most important part of a warm-up is progressive intensity. You can't just go really really easy for 10, 15, 20 minutes and then suddenly go super super high. You want to have some sort of gradual ramp. I think with strength training in the gym, people often are too worried about getting fatigued from their warm-up sets and they'll go a lot of reps really really light and then they'll make a really quick jump up to their working weight versus feeling out, you know, two or three reps at a moderately heavy weight. Um, even doing a full moderate effort set. I don't think you have to take that idea too far. You can certainly overwarm up and just wear yourself out before you even get to your working weight for the day. But don't be afraid to test out a couple reps at 80 90% of your planned working weight for the day. I think you're generally going to feel better uh with that kind of progressive intensity ramp. Same thing with cardio. If you're going to hit a high intensity, try to hit a couple intermediate steps. It can be very simple, couple surges or strides. Um again, that's if you want to feel your best, perform your best, but if you do skip over that or if you're rushed on time, I think that you can still train very effectively, very safe. you just might not feel uh, you know at your absolute best for the day. And importantly, you don't have to feel perfect to get a good workout.
So, something that a lot of people will do in a warm-up or to prime performance uh for a variety of uh for a variety of workout tasks is something called post- activation potentiation where they'll use something heavy to prime performance and something fast or explosive like doing a heavy deadlift, usually much heavier than what I showed you there, using that to prime performance and a jump type of task. Uh, you'll also see it in something called contrast training where people will go back and forth between something heavy, something more explosive or ballistic. And what I think is interesting about uh a lot of these phenomenon is that most of them when they got popularized were not being adequately compared against just a good comprehensive warm-up. So while there is a lot of data that says, yeah, post activation potentiation or or PAP, it's a real phenomenon, when we start comparing it to just good comprehensive specific warm-ups, it doesn't really look all that special anymore. Um, I'm certainly open to there being some uh, you know, minor benefits for specific people. If you've done it and you're like, I really like how it feels, I think that's fine. Um, but I'm personally underwhelmed by the data on it. I think any warm-up is going to be just fine, and I wouldn't prioritize trying to kind of hack your way to better performances with something like PAP. That being said, it can be fun. Um, and it can be a good time efficient way to get in a variety of heavy training and faster explosive plyometric training. So something like contrast training is at least non-inferior to a lot of traditional forms of exercise. So if you personally enjoy the kind of going back and forth between two different exercises um or you've personally experimented with some PAP concepts and you kind of like how it feels, um I'm certainly open to people doing it in a workout. I don't usually program it a lot. Um and I certainly don't prioritize it or tell people that they need to do it.
Something that a lot of people worry about and sometimes prioritize, oddly enough, with warm up with warming up is stretching. Some people think that stretching before exercise is really important. And other people kind of fear-monger stretching and point to studies that show that stretching causes an acute deficit in strength and power. Uh I think that both people probably are um putting a little bit too much emphasis on it. I don't think that uh stretching is necessary before exercise. In most cases, the research on stretching prior to exercise is not very strong for injury prevention, but I don't think it's non-existent either. Uh in some cases, some increases in range of motion prior to exercise that does require a lot of range of motion can be slightly protective. Um, I think it's more of a niche use case, though. I don't think that you have to try to stretch every muscle before you train it. But if you're going to be getting into fairly extreme ranges of motion, doing like calisthenics or gymnastics, or even if you're just doing Olympic weightlifting, for example, and your mobility is not very good with certain exercises that Olympic weightlifting places your body into, doing some light mobilization is certainly not a bad idea. Um, but I do think it's probably overemphasized by a lot of people. The flip side of that is that some people are scared of stretching before exercise because they've heard that it hurts their speed, explosiveness, and their power. And I think it's important to note that when you look at the studies that show that, the protocols are very extreme and unrealistic and that they'll usually take people from a long static stretch and then have them get up and immediately try to do a jump or explosive activity. It's not layered into a comprehensive warm-up where they might stretch, take a small break, take several warm-up sets and then get up to max effort in those ballistic or explosive activities. No one is just stretching in the gym and then standing up and immediately trying to one rep max a squat or jump maximum distance. That's not how real training works. I think when you implement some stretching into a more logical, comprehensive warm-up routine, it's probably at least benign, I don't think it's going to hurt you. But in general, I generally find it more effective later on in a workout when you are warmed up more and primed to actually push some of those stretches with a little bit more load, a little bit more intensity, and then see some um more permanent changes and adaptations to it versus just using stretching as kind of a transient way to get into some ranges of motion for the day. I'd rather you see I'd rather see someone wait do some of those heavier passive mobility holds later in a workout where they can push them really confidently and really really heavy without worrying about how they're going to fatigue their main lift for the day. For example, if you do push mobility work hard enough to really elicit a long-term adaptation to your mobility gains, you are probably going to incur some fatigue with that and not feel your best for your main lifts compared to just light general preparatory stretching. So, I'd rather see you get through your main lifts, save some of those really difficult holds, weighted holds for the end. I think you'll get a lot more out of it. Um, and your workout will be more efficient that way, too.
Something I think is underrated when it comes to warming up is just doing your warm-up sets with maximal intent. This is very simple, but it's one of the things that I see most people continue not to do. People implement different PAP strategies and mobility strategies, but rarely do I see people really attacking their warm-up sets with a lot of intensity even before the weights get heavy. Now, I think this is important for a couple of reasons. One, most people don't get a lot of exposure to higher velocities in their training. They'll kind of halfass or easy warm-up sets, nice and slow, and then things get heavy, but they never really have u that stimulus where they're moving a lightweight fast. I think that working on rate of force production is generally a good idea. It also ensures that you're still getting more high threshold motor unit recruitment even in your warm-up sets. Otherwise, you could be coasting on some of the smaller, weaker muscle fibers during your warm-up sets and then not really getting into some of those higher threshold motor units until things get heavy. So, when you lift with maximal intent, do those lighter warm-up sets still relatively fast, you ensure that you're warming up the muscle fibers or the motor units that you're actually going to train when the weight gets heavy. It's also a way to dial in your technique for the heavier sets. If you're just lifting the empty bar or something light, 50 60%, you can get away with kind of sloppy technique or inconsistent technique. um not necessarily dangerous, but it's not going to transfer as well to performance and skill acquisition in your main lift compared to a higher intent, higher velocity exercise where you really have to lock in, get that technique dialed in for whatever is going to give you the most power, speed, uh whatever is going to feel the best lifting at high intent, that's going to feel the best when things get heavy as well. So overall, I would skip some of the PAP, some of the stretching, but I would make it a consistent effort to take all of your warm-up sets seriously. Make sure technique is consistent with what you're going to do when the weight gets fairly heavy, and make sure you're lifting with high intent, trying to move all of your warm-up sets relatively quickly.
One of the main reasons that people will do warm-up exercises above and beyond just lighter sets of whatever their main movements are for the day is things like trying to activate certain muscle groups so that they work harder during that main exercise. and also to work on potentially mobility limitations that they may have that prevent them from doing the target exercise well and also to address just any strength deficits, range of motion deficits that they may have and that may be impacting their normal training. For everyone that does exercises like this, there's one question that I want you to ask yourself and really think about. This is not meant to be uh, you know, antagonizing or trying to make anyone feel dumb, but if you find an exercise that you do as a warm-up and you think, "Man, I just feel so much better when I warm up with this exercise." Think about what that exercise could do for you if you just loaded it heavier, more progressively, and incorporated it into your program as an actual target exercise instead of just relegating it to low-level warm-up. What I mean by that, and I'll I'll use an example here with something like the Y raise. For example, this exercise here, people will often do something like this Y raise, you know, they'll even add some weight to it, something like that. And the goal there is to usually, you know, activate uh mid traps, for example, uh improve overhead range of motion, all of those sorts of things. Um but usually that will be done early on in the workout, relatively lightweight um setup like this. It's kind of tougher in that shortened uh range of motion. It's really just kind of focusing on the squeeze there, trying to get up nice and high. And while it's not a bad exercise, it's usually something that is going to be very difficult to overload long term and the shortened range resistance profile, the position, it's just not very well suited to going super heavy and getting a big stimulus out of it um for bigger muscles, all those sorts of things. Uh, so with the fact with an exercise like this, what I generally find is that if you just have additional exercises in your program that train the mid traps a lot heavier and a lot harder, overload that overhead position a lot heavier and a lot harder, they're going to be strong enough and mobile enough in that position that doing a warm-up variation of that exercise that's a little bit more limited by short range strength and so on and so forth, you probably aren't going to have to do that forever. If you just pick better exercises in your program and in the short term, you can change your exercise order. What I mean by that is a lot of people will do an exercise like that and say, you know, I can't get into whatever overhead position for a snatch uh until I do that exercise, and so I need to do this warm-up exercise first. People are often afraid of the fatigue of doing heavier accessory work before main lift. they would be worried about doing heavier, you know, shrugs and, uh, kelso shrugs, uh, rows. They don't want to do those heavy lifts before the snatch, for example, because traditionally that heavier, higher skill exercise like the snatch would be done early in a session. So, people just want to warm up, optimize performance in that lift, and then move on to accessories. But I would encourage you to think that if you're someone who has mobility limitations, if you're struggling to get into position and struggling to activate the right muscles in a main lift, you're probably not someone who really needs to prioritize doing that lift the very first exercise to get as much out of it as you need to get out of it. I would encourage you to just adjust your exercise selection and exercise order to either one prioritize exercises that you can get into with less barrier to entry or two manipulate your manipulate your exercise order so that you're placing some effective accessories develop those weak points earlier on in your session and save that exercise for a little bit later on just short term until you're actually able to start getting into position uh without as many hurdles and obstacles. So rather than do something like a Y raise and a shoulder warm-up, if you're someone who really really needs that to get into some of those overhead positions, you might be better off prioritizing some trap heavier exercises loaded heavy and progressively earlier on in your session. For most people, I feel you could just skip them entirely, jump right into your specific warm-up sets of your main exercise, and then just spend that extra time that you saved on a heavier trap and delt variation later on in your workout. In either case, I prefer something like a cable Yays. Uh, one of my favorite variations here with the cuffs. Uh, I'm going to cross them. And now this variation has a more even resistance challenge. It's going to give me a better stimulus through more of the range of motion. And I can tailor that resistance curve by adjusting the angle of the bench. So, it's very challenging throughout. And I'm getting just as much of a stimulus here as I am here as I am here at the back. Now, an exercise like that taken close to failure for a couple of sets a couple of times per week is going to do much more for your trap strength and your shoulder strength and your overhead mobility than just doing lighter warm-up sets prior to your training. Again, I don't think the traditional dumbbell crap raise is necessarily a bad idea, but I would rather see someone spend more time on their specific warm-up sets of whatever overhead exercise they're going to do, like a strict press or a snatch or whatever it is, and then spend more time training those muscles closer to failure. So you can get a stimulus that you can stack and progress over time. Not the transient benefit of a light low-level set of 20 reps that you have to keep repeating time and time again just to get back to some baseline level of feeling somewhat good.
So, a lot of times when people are doing warm-up exercises, they do it because they want to improve their range of motion or give themselves what some people call a window of opportunity in which they can train a little bit more effectively or access positions that they can't get into originally. A classic example of this is overhead range of motion. A lot of people trying to do a very upright shoulder press like this without arching their back off of the seat, they're going to have a hard time keeping their arms all the way up, they're going to want to press out here a little bit. So often times things like tight lats, weak traps, weak uh serrus anterior, those are often blamed on people's inability to get those arms all the way overhead. So, what people will do when they see someone kind of struggling and and pressing out a little bit is they'll take them out of the exercise and they'll have them do some sort of warm-up exercise like a banded wall slide like this here where they're instructed to protract into the wall. Gradually roll this up and down. They'll get an exercise like that. can tell I'm not a big fan of that exercise. Um, they'll do any sort of uh overhead mobilization, warm-up, activation exercises, and then the person will come back to the bench and they'll go to do that shoulder press and they'll be like, "Oh, wow. That feels so much better. I have more range of motion." But what that's often not compared against is well, just about anything else. One of my favorites is just a gradual change in the angle or the range of motion of the exercise. For example, if you find where someone's mobility limit is and you push them relatively hard through that position, do an actual working set. Really get some blood moving, get them comfortable in that position, taking some deep breaths in that position. And then you return to that steeper angle. You'll generally see a lot of the same improvement, especially over time. If week over week you can make some micro adjustments, gradually get someone into that position, you may be able to see a lot of the same improvements. Joint mobilization or wall slide or uh kettle bell arm bar, whatever it is um that you might see done as a warm-up, you can probably get some of those same improvements just through
A very progressive load and progressive range strategy. When it comes to the idea of creating a window of opportunity to feel good, to train hard, one of the most common things that people will do is prior to kind of a classic heavy compound lift like a barbell shoulder press is people will do a lighter variation that uh has a little bit more stability demands for example or often some sort of like external constraint uh that's trying to force them into a certain position.
The idea there being to activate certain muscles, especially like stabilize your muscles, prior to doing that heavy compound version. So, for example, prior to a barbell shoulder press, some people will do something like a bottoms up kettle bell shoulder press, something like this. They'll use this to kind of wake up those stabilizers, for example. Um, they'll do a couple sets of that um before going on to that heavier compound press.
Now, I don't necessarily think that doing something like that is the end of the world. Um, but I think often times when people do something like that and it feels good and they experience success with it, they create a potentially false or misleading narrative in their head about why it was effective. So in this case, for example, I got a fairly light kettle bell here. You know, 26 pounds and doing a set of 10 with the bottoms up 26 lb kettle bell is going to be enough for me to feel a little bit challenged. I'm going to feel a little bit of burn by the time I get through that set. And if I do two or three sets with that, that is uh a lot of just general warm-up volume with a relatively low load. That alone could be responsible for a lot of the benefits.
You know, I could potentially before I get started just do an extra three sets of 10 of an empty barbell shoulder press with that sort of same slow tempo that you would typically use with the upside down kettle bell. And that also may be very effective. Typically, when people get to their main lift or their heavier barbell variation, they're going to be ramping up weights relatively quickly, be moving weights relatively quickly. And if you do have some sort of pre-existing irritation, something that just needs a little bit more um a little more blood flow, a little more time to start feeling good, uh that like lighter, more complex variation for a couple of sets might just be a way to force you to actually get in a little bit more warm-up volume than you typically would.
Can it work? Yes. But is it working because it's activating stabilizer muscles? Or is it working because it was an additional three sets of 10 with a very low load created a little bit of pre- fatigue, maybe reduced your output on the subsequent heavier sets a little bit because of that fatigue. All of those, I think, are equally valid explanations. And what I would encourage people to do is if you are experiencing success with a complex exercise variation like that, consider some of those alternative explanations and look for other ways that you could get some of those same benefits in a little bit less time without some of those potentially misleading narratives about having to wake up or activate certain muscles.
So, for example, if I was someone who liked to do a lot of those bottoms up shoulder presses before my heavier uh barbell shoulder press variation, two other options that I could do is one just do some other exercises, a different pressing variation that is a little bit less painful, more comfortable. So, if a chest press, for example, like a dumbbell chest press, if I can jump into that a little bit faster, a little bit sooner, and still feel pretty good, maybe just starting my workout with that press and then coming to this a little bit later in the workout when my shoulders are feeling a little bit more warmed up just from everything else I've done in the session. The other option is just jumping right to that uh shoulder press, just doing more lighter weight warm-up sets, maybe restricting it to a slower tempo or partial range of motion earlier on. So, for that first set, I might not go quite as low. I might move extra slow, stop there, keeping that slower tempo. And just doing an extra set or two of something simple like that. Um, that is essentially part of the main lift I'm already preparing for, rather than making things unnecessarily complicated with something like that bottoms up press that probably is not doing anything as special as you might think it is. for something like overhead mobility.
Another thing that people often don't consider when looking at some of these warm-up exercises is how it compares to just doing different exercises first. For example, if I do some overhead pulling, like I go ahead and do my lat pull for example, or a dumbbell pullover is another great idea. If I do those exercises first, that has some built-in overhead mobilization that's probably going to make this shoulder press feel a lot better. A lot of times people will just have certain clients do certain exercises first in a session because that's the way it's always been done. So it's shoulder day. We're doing shoulder press first. It doesn't have to be like that. You could start with some pulling exercises, some different shoulder accessories, and then a gradual range of motion progression on that shoulder press. And by the time you get a couple of sets in and you've done all those other exercises, your shoulder press might be feeling great. and now you spent the entire workout actually training, not just preparing to do a shoulder press. And I think that's generally a better use of most people's time.
Perhaps one of the most common uses of a warm-up is temporary or transient pain desensitization. Now, this is in some ways one of the most important uses of a warm-up, but in others potentially one of the most dangerous. Now, this is a nuance topic, so I want to make sure that I explain this in depth and don't have anyone walk away with the wrong idea about what I mean here. So, when it comes to pain desensitization, uh there's a lot of power in that. A lot of times people will have reduced power output, reduced desire to train and do things that are generally healthpromoting because something hurts. And if we can just simply take some of that pain away, decrease some of that sensitivity, we might be able to get people a higher quality training stimulus, or make them feel better and safer about showing up to the gym in the first place.
On the other hand, I think that often times people throw pain desensitization strategies at things when what they really need is to just take a day off. I see it a lot with uh acute teninopathy flare-ups. You know, someone does a little bit too much running or jumping and their knees get achy, they have a patellar tendon flare up, and instead of just saying, "Oh man, I should probably take a couple days off," they're like, "Oh, I need to throw some isometrics at it. I need to throw this at it." And they come in the gym, and they have all these things that they can do that makes it feel better and it works and it gives them that window of opportunity for from which they can then train pretty hard. But my question is, do you actually need to be training hard in all of those situations?
If you work with a physical therapist, um if you have a coach, you know, you can have some of these conversations and say, "Hey, is this a time when I need to, you know, desensitize and I have a sensitivity problem, but I need to keep working on my tolerance, or is this a case where I really just need a little bit of rest and recovery and I might be using some of these warm-up uh desensitization strategies to mask some of the training related aches and pains that are trying to tell my body I need to take some time off." It's a tough conversation. I don't think that there's a very clear answer there. Um, but I do think that we should be a little bit cautious with constantly trying to cover up every ache and pain that we have and always trying to find ways around it uh to be able to still train.
Realistically, any sort of desensitization strategy that you're going to do is that then allows you to train hard. What I would remember is that it didn't make any sort of massive tissue level change that allowed that training to take place. In a lot of ways, it really was all in your head and you probably could have just done that hard training anyway, not feeling perfect. And by the time you finished, you probably still would have had a little bit of desensitization occur. You probably still would have gotten most of the same benefits from that session anyway. So, if you're walking into the gym and you're like, "Oh man, my patellar tendons are a little bit achy. Should I cover it up with a bunch of ISOs first and then train heavy or should I rest uh instead of training or can I just jump into some of the training that's probably good for me to do even if they don't feel perfect. Among those three options, I don't think there's always a clear winner, but I do think it's something that everyone should think about. And I think that more often than not, I see people using uh warm-up routines, uh manual therapy interventions, foam rolling, self massage. I see that becoming an increasingly common way for people to cover up pain the same way that we've seen people do with Tylenol and painkillers for years. It's not something I like to see. I'd rather see people change their mindset and the narratives and the beliefs that they have about pain and either one respect when they should take some time off or two don't catastrophize pain or think it needs to be something that always needs to be covered up in the first place.
A common warm-up trap that people will fall into is they'll find something that works for them in the short term, possibly because they have a legitimate injury that they're rehabbing or something that hurts and they find something that makes that feel better, or they just look on the internet and they see that a certain exercise is possibly effective as rehab for a certain condition. For example, if you have really messed up knees, you have really uh highly sensitive patellar teninopathy or quad teninopathy, maybe something like this reverse treadmill walk might be a really good introduction into loading some of that tissue a little bit and it feels really good. However, that doesn't mean that it's an effective strategy longterm for building additional resilience and capacity in that tissue. Just because something works for short short-term symptom management does not mean that is a good loading strategy forever.
And so oftentimes people will go through years, decades of training. They'll accumulate various aches, pains, minor injuries, maybe go to a PT for some of these things and get rehab programs. And first it's backwards treadmill walk for the jumper's knee that they got while playing a lot of pickup basketball. And then it was bird dogs for the case of lower back pain that they had. And then they got uh full can raises and band pull- aarts for a case of uh rotator cuff sensitivity. And now every time they go to the gym, even though it's been years, they're now doing all of these knee rehab exercises, core stability exercises, rotator cuff exercises, when now the damage has long healed. they're ready to progress into much tougher normal training, but because those exercises fixed them back in the day, they feel like they're still beneficial or necessary. And I think it's very important that whatever exercises you're doing meet you where you're at today. And that means when you do have an issue, a sensitivity, you make those exercises appropriately easy. But those exercises grow and develop along with you and they don't become something that you are dependent on forever.
In the case of the backwards treadmill walk, it's something that is appropriate for very early stage rehab. If you're very very sensitive, but it's something that is not very high stress and it's probably something that you're going to progress out of pretty quickly. I would be very hesitant to look at something like this and think I need to keep doing that as knee warm-up forever, long after whatever issue you may have had has long healed.
I hope that up this point you haven't watched this and are now under the impression that I think all warm-ups are a terrible idea all the time. Instead, I hope that this video was just a way for you to start thinking about warm-ups in a little more depth and uh think about them a little more critically so that you can make sure that whatever training you do and whatever warm-ups you do are as efficient as possible and you're not wasting time on warm-up exercises that aren't serving you as effectively as just training more effectively. um layering things into your workouts, adjusting exercise order, modifying range of motion, all of those sorts of things, um I believe can be as effective, if not more effective than a lot of traditional warm-up routines.
Now that you've seen how I think about warm-ups in, you know, all of these different contexts, ranging from general to specific, uh, with strength and with cardio, um, working through aches, pains, and injuries, um, I want to just leave you with kind of a a walk through start to finish how I think about a training session and how I implement some of these concepts in my own training and the training that I program for a lot of my clients. First thing, when I get to the gym, I'm generally not trying to jump into my main lift for the day as quickly as I possibly can. There's nothing wrong with that, but I find picking some lower barrier to entry exercises that are easier to jump into right away, but still provide some level of stimulus is my preferred way to start a session. For example, if I'm squatting that day, going right into super heavy squats is going to take a little bit longer. I'm gonna need more warm-up sets to get to that point where I feel like I can squat really, really heavy. On the other hand, if I start with training calves, for example, or do some hamstring curls or do some plyometric exercises or even some core work, all of those things are exercises that I feel like I can generally just do one kind of light feeder set and then some really hard sets and be getting a good training stimulus within one or two minutes of walking in the gym door. Whereas, if I'm there to squat and I just start squatting, it might take me five to 10 minutes of gradually ramping up until I feel good enough to start pushing it really hard. So, just manipulating exercise order and doing some lower barrier to entry exercises first, even sometimes some accessory exercises first can be a great way to kind of get some of that general warm-up effect without having to do a low-level boring general warm-up.
The second thing that I'll often do is look for any weak links, things that I know need a little bit of extra attention in my program. I generally will just find exercises that I know train those qualities very, very well, and I strategically program those into my workout rather than just doing a low-level transient warm-up for those qualities. For example, if I'm trying to work on my T-spine mobility, for example, there's all sorts of low-level T-spine mobilizations that you could do that are generally not high enough intensity to elicit a lasting change or be part of a progression that you can stack long term. However, if you do something like a really heavy cable twist, for example, hold the lengthen position for a couple seconds and push it close to failure, that's going to be enough to elicit long-term improvements in mobility to the point that if you continue to do that for several weeks, months, and years, you probably won't feel like that's a limiting factor or something that you need to warm up at all anymore. And I find that to be the case with a lot of things that people struggle with. ankle mobility, T-spine mobility, overhead mobility, a lot of these things, if you just pick exercises that are really challenging and force you into some of those positions and you work on controlling those positions, taking some deep breaths in those positions during your normal training, those qualities are going to improve more than they would if you just address those things through low-level mobilizations. Now, of course, some of those lower level exercises can certainly be ways to get some lower level training stimulus in as you work towards those more uh heavily loaded options. But having to change exercises from a low-level uh mobility exercise or lowle warm-up exercise to then doing the exercise you're going to load and try hard at to me is an unnecessary um you know complexity in the program versus just start with that exercise that gets you into the range of motion that you want and just start a little bit lighter. Maybe layer in some additional warm-up sets versus having additional warm-up exercises that needlessly complicate your program.
A common theme with a lot of the ways that I think about addressing warm-ups and exercise selection and exercise order is that a lot of the guidelines that people try to adhere to, like always starting with your heaviest, highest output lift for the day, your highest skill exercise for the day, a lot of these guidelines are just guidelines. They're not hard and fast rules that are written in stone. And for a lot of people that are ordinary people without a very extensive training history, maybe a lot of aches, pains, injuries, or limitations, trying to stick to some of those rules like I have to start with back squats before I do anything else. Sticking to those rules that might be ideal, you know, for a healthy uninjured powerlifter, for example, all else being equal, a lot of those rules just don't necessarily apply to the everyday person. and experimenting with variables like exercise order or just not forcing yourself into exercises that require a 20-minute warm-up to be able to do can be a much better and more effective use of limited training time. I think a lot of people's need for extensive warm-ups comes from trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and trying to do an exercise that really exceeds your mobility capacity at any given time. and you'd be better off just picking something that is a little bit more accessible and that you can get into training hard within a couple of minutes. Most people, especially with limited training time, are going to be able to acrue more highquality training by picking exercises that they don't actually need to warm up for very much in the first place. Now, if you're an athlete or if you really care about specific exercises for their own sake, that may not apply to you as much. you might have to warm up a little bit more to pursue the task uh that you really really care about. But from a general training perspective, I don't think there's any reason that people can't just pick exercises that don't require much warm-up in the first place. Choose simple, stable exercises, lower scale exercises that you can get into with a couple of feeder sets, and easily manipulate the range of motion of that exercise set to set and as you improve over time.
Lastly, if there are any serious mobility deficiencies that you have that you want to address, if you have super tight hamstrings or really poor overhead mobility, if there's something like that that you really want to address and make some progress on, I think that using stretching later on in a workout when you're warmed up and prepared to push some of those mobility exercises pretty hard is a more effective use of time than adding a lot of low inensity training to the beginning of a session. It might make you feel pretty good and allow you to get a little bit deeper into certain exercises on that day. But I think if you just jump into those exercises that you can hit heavy and hard without a lot of warm-up and then hit some heavier, higher intensity mobility work, work on your splits, for example, or whatever it is for you, but heavier um challenging mobility holds, um weighted stretching, etc. that kind of stuff is going to be more effective, more time efficient, but it does actually work a little bit better later on in the session um than some of the low-intensity stretching you'll often see done at the beginning.
My final point for you guys today is just a reminder about um warm-up exercises and injury prevention. one, the data is not as strong as most people would lead you to believe in terms of specific warm-ups, um, special exercises, I mean, uh, and their ability to prevent injuries. If you are someone who is rehabbing an injury, coming back from an injury, and you have an exercise that has been prescribed to you by a physical therapist, or you're finding that it works really well for you at the beginning of a session, don't forget that that is a short-term symptom management strategy. It's not something that you have to do forever or that will prevent injuries in the future if you keep doing it long term. At some point, you need to integrate heavier and more challenging training back into your program as your capacity improves. And that likely means gradually phasing some of those prehab exercises out. I'm highly skeptical of people who do a lot of low-level prehab exercises at the beginning of a workout who aren't actually injured when there's much more effective high threshold, high tension exercises for those muscle groups that you could easily do anywhere else in your program and get more lasting uh progressive change over time. That's all I have for you guys this week. Hopefully you found that video helpful. I'll be back next time.