How to warm up

Warming up raises muscle temperature, which speeds nerve conduction in muscle fibres and improves how the contractile proteins bind ^[1]. It also lets you rehearse the movement with light loads before it matters.

Does it improve performance? A meta-analysis of 32 studies found warming up improved performance in 79 per cent of the outcomes examined, with little evidence that it ever hurts ^[2]. Those studies covered many kinds of physical activity, though. For lifting specifically, the evidence is thinner: one crossover trial found that neither a general, a specific, nor a combined warm-up changed the number of reps men could do at 80 per cent of their max ^[3].

So be honest about it: the performance effect in the gym may be small. The case for warming up before lifting rests on movement rehearsal, on checking how your body feels that day, and on common sense about not putting a near-maximal load on cold tissue. Evidence that warm-ups prevent lifting injuries is limited.

A review of time-efficient training makes the practical call: if you're short on time, keep only the exercise-specific warm-up sets ^[4].

1. Raise (3–5 minutes, optional if you're already warm). Easy bike, rower, incline walk or skipping until you're slightly warm and breathing a little faster. Skip it on a hot day or if you walked briskly to the gym.

2. Move (2–3 minutes). Two or three dynamic drills for the joints you're about to use, 8 to 10 reps each. Dynamic stretching produces small-to-moderate performance improvements when done within minutes of activity ^[5].

• Lower-body day: leg swings, bodyweight squats with a pause, walking lunges with a reach.
• Upper-body day: arm circles, band pull-aparts, push-ups, scapular hangs.

3. Ramp (3–5 minutes). Progressively heavier sets of your first lift. This is the part that matters most.

Ramp-up sets take you from an empty bar to your working weight in a few jumps, with reps falling as the load rises so you arrive primed, not tired. The scheme below is common coaching practice; no trial has identified an optimal sequence.

For a working weight of 100 kg × 5:

• Empty bar (20 kg) × 8–10
• 50 kg × 5
• 70 kg × 3
• 85–90 kg × 1
• Then working sets at 100 kg

Guidelines:

• Heavier work needs more steps. A top set of 3 at a heavy load deserves four or five ramp sets. A set of 12 on a machine needs one or two.
• Later exercises need less. Once you're warm, one lighter set of 5 to 8 reps is usually enough for the second and third lifts, and often nothing for small isolation lifts.
• Treat every ramp set as practice. Same setup, same bar path, same bracing as the working sets.
• Rest briefly between early ramp sets, then take your full rest before the first working set.

The old advice was to stretch first. The newer advice was never to. The evidence sits in between.

• Short holds are fine. Static stretches under 60 seconds per muscle cause, at most, trivial losses in strength: about 1 to 2 per cent in pooled data ^{[6] [5]}.
• Long holds cost a little. Holding 60 seconds or more per muscle reduces performance by around 4 to 5 per cent when tested straight afterwards ^{[5] [6]}.
• Context matters. When stretching is followed by dynamic activity, as in a full warm-up, no clear performance effect remains ^[5]. A later review concludes that short static stretches inside a complete warm-up have negligible effects on strength and power ^[1].
• Injury prevention is unproven. Stretching showed no protective effect in a meta-analysis of randomised trials on sports injuries ^[7], although one review still recommends it within a warm-up for reducing muscle strains ^[5].

The practical position: you don't need static stretching before lifting. If a position is limiting you, such as tight calves stopping you squatting to depth, a 20 to 30 second stretch for that muscle before your ramp sets is reasonable and won't hurt your strength. Save long stretching sessions for after training or another time of day.

Foam rolling before training has small positive effects on flexibility and sprint performance, and the pooled data suggest it's better justified as a warm-up activity than as a recovery tool ^[8]. A minute on the areas that feel stiff is plenty.

Activation drills such as glute bridges and band walks are widely used. They do no harm and can help you feel a position, but treat any claim that they're essential as coaching opinion.

• Warming up for 20 minutes, lifting for 25. Cap the general part at five minutes.
• Big jumps. Going from the empty bar straight to the working weight skips the rehearsal.
• Fatiguing ramp sets. Ten reps at 80 per cent of your working weight is a working set. Keep reps low as the weight climbs.
• Ignoring warning signs. If a joint hurts sharply during ramp sets, change the exercise or the plan for the day. Pain that persists across sessions is worth a visit to a physio.