A Warm-Up That Actually Prepares You

Warm-ups fail in two directions. Some people skip them and start heavy work cold; others spend twenty-five minutes on floor work that has nothing to do with the session. A useful warm-up does three things in order: raises body temperature with a few minutes of easy movement, takes the relevant joints through their range, and then rehearses the day's main patterns with progressively heavier sets. The last part is usually the most valuable and the most neglected.

Key points

• Start with three to five minutes of easy continuous movement until breathing deepens and you feel slightly warm.
• Use movement through a range rather than long static holds before training, saving longer holds for after the session.
• Match the joint preparation to the day: hips and ankles before squatting, shoulders and upper back before pressing.
• Build to your first working weight across two or three ramping sets rather than jumping straight to load.
• Keep the whole sequence under fifteen minutes so it remains something you will still do on a busy day.

Common mistakes

• Running an identical warm-up before every session, so the joints being loaded that day get no specific preparation.
• Turning the warm-up into a second workout, arriving at the first working set already tired and slower.
• Loading the first heavy set straight from the empty bar, which removes the chance to check position at moderate weight.

Put it into practice