Why the first 10 minutes in the gym are the most important

Protect those beautiful biceps with a thorough warm-up!

With my crazy schedule, resistance-training time is at a premium. Those precious minutes in the gym are hard to come by, and I don’t want to waste a single one. But I always devote five to 10 minutes to a general warm-up and then carve out time for specific warm-ups before lifting weights.

I recommend the same for my clients and anyone who lifts weights.

It may seem like a big time commitment, but the small investment you make by warming up could save you weeks of inactivity from injury.

You’re looking for the sweet spot between an inadequate warm-up that’s a waste of time and an overly thorough one that wears you out before you even lay hands on the iron. Here are some principles to help you nail it.

The general warm-up

What it is: The general warm-up prepares your body for exercise. It does this by increasing your body temperature and increasing blood flow to your muscles.

A warm muscle that’s well supplied with blood is a more pliable one. It performs better and is less susceptible to injury.

The range of motion of your joints is also improved after a thorough warm-up.

A good warm-up even increases the speed of nerve impulse transmissions, which means faster communication between your brain, spinal cord, and limbs and thus improved physical performance.

What to do: Good choices include jumping rope, doing traditional calisthenics such as burpees and jumping jacks, and cardio activity that uses most of your body: walking briskly or jogging at a moderate pace while swinging your arms, using a rowing machine, or using an elliptical trainer that incorporates arm action.

You could also mix kettle-bell swings in with the calisthenics.

How long: Five to 10 minutes. The idea is to warm up long enough to break a sweat but not to do so much that you deplete your workout energy. The warm-up should leave you feeling energized and ready to attack the weights. In a cold environment, you may need more time. Older people may also benefit from a somewhat longer warm-up.

What to leave out: Static stretching, that is, holding a position for an extended period. Recent research indicates that in most cases stretching before exercise provides no protection against injury—and might even make you weaker in the sets you’re about to perform. The best time to stretch? At the end of the workout.

(Dynamic stretching can play a role in the pre-workout warm-up, but that’s a topic for another day.)

Now it’s time for the specific warm-up

What it is: As the name suggests, it prepares specific muscles, joints, and connective tissue for the precise strength-training moves you’re about to do. It’s a great opportunity for you to focus 100 percent on perfect form as you execute each movement with a light, manageable weight.

If you’re in a hurry, it’s better to skip some of your “work sets” than your specific warm-ups.

What to do: At least one warm-up set before you begin work sets of various lifts. An exception: When you’re doing high-rep exercises (like, for example, ab work at 20 to 50 or more reps per set), you don’t need a specific warm-up. You’re not handling heavy weight, and the warm-up is built into the set.

One set is usually adequate before moves that involve smaller muscles or put primary stress on a single muscle—for instance, bicep curls, tricep press downs, lateral raises for shoulders, or dumbbell rows.

But there are times you’ll want to perform more than one warm-up set:

1. When you’re working large muscle groups (chest, back, legs) with multijoint movements such as the bench press, squat, or deadlift.
2. When you’re planning to go heavy.
3. When you’ve previously injured a specific area, even if it involves a single muscle and light weights.

So, for example, if you’re planning to go heavy on the bench press, you might perform as many as three warm-up sets in preparation.

Start with the rep range and weight indicated below, then work up to the poundage for your work sets.

How many reps and how much weight to use: The American College of Sports Medicine recommends warm-up sets of 12 to 15 reps at about 50 percent of the workout weight you’d normally lift 10 times.

How much rest: Give yourself from 30 seconds to three minutes’ rest between the specific warm-up and the work set.

What’s your history? Do you usually warm up before lifting? If not, have I persuaded you to start?

Tagged as: resistance training, warm ups, warming up, weight lifting, working out