No warm up. Instead: fatigueless pre workout pump-up.

[Biggerp73]

Couple months ago I posted above why I thought warm ups were a bit overrated, and a lot of the times counter-productive, since so often guys pyramid up in weight in a manner that fatigues the muscles so that their top set doesn't handle anywhere near the level of weight and reps they could have handled without the fatigue-inducing warm-up.

Lately I've been doing something new.

Before hitting my heavy sets, I warm-up, but without substantive pyramiding. Basically I stay with an extremely light weight, say just ten pounds, and do several sets of high reps, just slowly getting the muscle as pumped as I can, without even remotely fatiguing the muscle from work, as the weight is so light.

Then once the muscle is super pumped, I do a very brief pyramid up, quickly to the max weight, and I'm able to really tax the muscle with near my 1rm in poundage, for sets of 5-10 reps.

Now of course that isn't actually near my TRUE 1rm, but in context you get the idea. Very very heavy weight.

This approach allows me to fully pump the muscle, prime the tendons and ligaments, and hit super heavy weight with intensity, all without the risks and downsides of overtraining, pre-exhausting (in a negative way), chasing the pump with garbage sets that are counterproductive, etc.

 

[control]

This is pretty much what I do as well.
-super light warm up set
-2-3 "feel sets"
-Max intensity progressive overload set
- Then sometimes, a "back off" set with about 80% weight of the max set. Usually this would be on a heavy compound movement for legs or back, where I feel like I can get just a little bit more from the muscle.

 

[old timer]

I did reverse pyramids years ago where you quickly worked up to your working weight for a few reps and then dropped weight by increasing reps. Not exactly what you're doing but similar in theory to do the most while you're the freshest.

 

[Fleezy]

i just warm up with sets of 3-5 reps nbd

make sure everything feels right before i get to work

 

[buck]

These days i find pyramiding is mostly just to get the CNS firing off well. And keep the reps low. Wish i would have done that years ago instead of trying to warm he muscle up!

 

[Mk91]

the target is to transport the blood in the muscle, so use light weight until you reach that.
i think no matter if you are using pyramid sets or just litgher weight

 

[Gunsmith]

I actually pref to pre fatigue the muscles a little so that I don’t need as much weight for maximum intensity , the greatly helps my joints. I can go to true failure with say 100lb dumbbells for 6-7 reps rather than needing 130’s. Still getting maximum expenditures but less stress on the joint. I know some power lifters that do something very close to what you explain though and it definitely helps them steadily increase strength

 

[kscowboy]

Very close to what Nick Walker does.

 

[alfresco]

You all know me.

I am a huge fan of keeping very accurate records/ logs.

Warmups, style of training, etc., very personal. Whatever works for you. Just do no harm. Harm in the sense that it prevents you from reaching your goals.

Just learn from your notes and keep the needle moving forward.

In my opinion, it all comes down to progression . . . food, weights, drugs, etc.

And of course, last but not least, learning from your mistakes.

 

[KillerStack]

For some bodyparts I do some very high rep light weight warming up. Like triceps typically. I might do one or two 100 rep sets of pressdowns to make the achy feeling in the elbows go away. But I don't dare go straight to my top weight. What I do is pyramid up but only do 1 single rep with each weight progression just to "feel" the exercise properly. This is just going by instinct, what I do to avoid tearing something. I think and hope it helps.

I seem to remember Tom Prince saying he warmed up with the "100 rep" method for the first set, just to get rid of the aches and kinks before real training starts.

Though I wonder how much protection warming up actually offers. What if it's just a feeling of being safer. Here I'm thinking of the studies where stretching actually increased the rate of injuries. Now that I'm thinking about this, I think "they" claimed the old Bulgarian Olympic lifters did no warmups, all training was at like 95%+ loads. Probably a bullshit storyline to sell a training system but there were reportedly tons of injuries with those guys.

 

[buck]

From what i have seen every one i know that has lifted 20-30 years or even 10 has joint issues. Lifting weights is not really a normal activity. Warming up a muscle from the studies i saw many years ago from the Soviets showed it did not really warm anything up. I have spent years warming up and stretching after and years doing little and it seems the injury rate was about the same if i was trying to always push heavier weights, even with a good form. Wear and tear occurs is my experience. Not what people want to hear.