- .... How much warming up you need to do specific to a given exercise partly
depends on the type of training you are doing. It is also influenced by any
history of injury that necessitates more warming up for a specific area. Any
muscle tightness that might be present would need to be eased by gentle but
specific stretching, and maintained by stretching between sets.. If you are using very slow cadence reps you may not need to do any specific
warming up unless you have a weak link that needs special care and warmup
work. e general warming up and the early reps of the relatively light-
weight work set will probably suffice, and you may not even need to do any
general warming up unless it is cold.. If you are training with little or no rest between your work sets, and doing
exercises back to back, you need to do all your warmup work prior to the
workout proper, or else you will break the sustained intensity of the work-
out by having to do specific warmup sets prior to each work set. But this
is not a practical way to train in a busy gym because it necessitates several
pieces of gear being yours for a sustained period.. For more traditional training, each exercise is a unit in which warmup and
work sets are completed before moving onto the warmup sets for the next
exercise. Traditional training does not restrain poundages by having you
move quickly between sets and exercises, or by reducing rep speed to a very
slow cadence. Because the weights are heavier, more care needs to be given
to ensure that sufficient warming up work is done.. e lower the reps you are performing, the more warmup sets you need. e
higher the reps of the work sets, the fewer warmup sets you may need. But
in either case you do not need to do lots of reps in each warmup set. About
half a dozen deliberate and controlled reps for the first set followed by fewer
for subsequent warmup sets will suffice.. For example, consider the same person and three different squat workouts:
× ( set of reps), × × ( sets of reps), × × (
singles). e three different workouts, with warmup sets could be: × , × , ×
× , × , × , × , × ×
× , × , × , × , × ×