The Ten-Minute Warm-Up That Doesn't Eat Your Session
What to actually do in the ten minutes before you lift, and why the stretching you were taught at school makes your first working set worse.
Ahmet Abiç · Founding editor
Arnold Schwarzenegger
7× Mr. Olympia
Most people either skip the warm-up entirely or spend twenty minutes on it and arrive at the first working set already tired. Both are the same mistake: treating the warm-up as a separate event instead of the first part of the lift.
Ten minutes is enough. Here is where they go.
The first five minutes: get warm, literally
The point is body temperature, not flexibility. Anything that raises your heart rate and moves your joints through their range works: rowing, cycling, a brisk incline walk, or the movements themselves with no load.
What does not work is sitting on the floor holding a hamstring stretch. Held stretches before lifting reduce force output for a while afterwards, so you arrive at your first heavy set weaker than you would have been.
The second five minutes: rehearse the lift
Now do the lift you are about to do, starting with the empty bar and adding weight in steps. For a working weight of 60 kg that might be:
- Empty bar for 5
- 30 kg for 5
- 45 kg for 3
- 55 kg for 1
Each of those should feel easy. They are not training, they are rehearsal: you are teaching your body the pattern at increasing load so the first real set is not the first time the movement happens today.
What changes on later lifts
Nothing general. Once you are warm you stay warm, so the second and third lifts of the session need one or two light sets each and nothing more. The full ramp is only for the first lift of the day.
Common questions
The three things people get wrong about warming up, answered from the routine above.
Should I stretch before lifting?
Not statically. Holding a stretch for thirty seconds or more before you lift temporarily reduces how much force you can produce, which is the opposite of what a warm-up is for. Move through the range instead, and save long holds for after the session.
How many warm-up sets do I need?
Three to four on your first lift of the day, fewer on the ones that follow, because the general work is already done. Every set should end well before it feels hard; these are practice reps, not training.
Do I need to warm up on machines too?
One light set is usually enough. The general five minutes at the start covers most of it; the specific work matters most on lifts where a technical mistake costs you something.
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