:think I'm starting Rippetoe's Starting Strengh routine and it says you should do 3 warm up sets at lighter weights gradually getting heavier? I can understand this is to warm up the specific muscles for the exercise. But why 3 sets building up to the actual weight?
It's just an example, it can be a few more. Generally it's bar, 40%, 50%, 60%, first work set of the day. In 5x5 I'd probably do one with 75% of the target weight as well, depending how large the jumps were, but its pretty individual, and if you had done much else that day, or previous day was a day off, etc If you are squatting 3000kg, you won't do 3 sets and you are at 300kg. It's generally to dissuade the overly cautious crowds who take 5kg jumps from 50kg away from their target, and by the time they get to their work sets they are tired out. Same with saying less is more sometimes with warming up for anything, a lot of boxing gyms have ridiculous "warmups" that you get used to, but in the beginning seriously detract from any useful work being done in the rest of the session.
Thanks MrSmall. I've only been doing dynamic warm-ups, I'm going to try plyos in addition to what I've been doing and see how that affects my workouts.
This^. Incorpoate plyos in your warm ups for lets say 10 session (5 sessions w/ plyo's in warm up). If you feel a positive difference add them into regular warm up fro strength training. If there is no difference or decline in performance then discontinue. But dynamic warm ups are usually sufficientg enough. A good source for dymanic warm ups is Joe Defranco. I beleive the site is www.defrancostraining.com.
I don't do a whole series of dynamic warmups or foam rolling, so I wouldn't know the difference, maybe I am missing something. I have a very minor stretch and get under the bar. I usually start sessions with squats and just do double sets on the lighter weights.
