This Warm Up Strategy Will Dramatically Improve Your Performance In The Gym
Before slamming heavy weight, you need to be warmed up properly. Being properly warmed up ensures you:
Significantly reduce risk of injury
Significantly improve performance (lift more weight with higher quality reps)
Warming up may seems fairly simple. The conventional wisdom these days is to simply perform the exercise itself, using lighter weight for a few quick sets, prior to jumping into your working sets. This advice however, avoids some key nuances which oversimplifies the mechanisms behind warming up. Specifically, how our nervous systems adapt to moving around heavy-ass weight. Fortunately we have knowledge that can improve our warm ups significantly.
Three Types Of Warm-Up Set
In my own training and in the programs I write, I utilize 3 types of warm up sets. Each warm-up set has a unique purpose in priming the body to better, and more safely, move big weight. These three types of warm-ups are as follows: Feeler Sets, Feeder Sets, and Potentiation Sets. Let's dive into each one and how they fit into our training.
Feeler Set
Feeler sets were coined by Jay Cutler. These are sets performed before the working sets where the goal is to “feel” the movement and pump blood into the muscle with minimal fatigue. Personally, I like to take half of the projected working set weight to perform my feeler sets, which I do first, for ever exercise.
Example of Feeler Sets:
Working Set Load: 405 lbs Working Set Rep Range: 10-12 👇🏼 Feeler Set: 200 lbs x 10
Feeder Set
Feeder sets (which I learned from John Meadows) are warm up sets whose goal is to prime the body to heavier and heavier weight. Our nervous systems need to be activated before moving big weight. Sometimes you experience this if you don’t warm up properly, where you get MORE reps on your second working set than your first. This is because your nervous system is more “awake” for the second working set than the first.
Feeder sets approach, but do not exceed the working set load.
Example of Feeder Sets:
Working Set Load: 405 lbs Working Set Rep Range: 10-12 👇🏼 Feeder Set 1: 300 lbs x 5 Feeder Set 2: 350 lbs x 3 Feeder Set 3: 375 lbs x 1
Potentiation Set
When it comes to priming the nervous system for smooth reps under heavy loads, a potentiation set may be worth considering. These are sets done JUST prior to the working set where you perform around 2 reps AT the working set load or roughly 10% above the working set load. The idea being, after this very short set, the weight will move much smoother with our nervous system primed for heavy weight.
Example of Potentiation Sets:
Working Set Load: 405 lbs Working Set Rep Range: 10-12 👇🏼 Potentiation Set: 445 lbs x 2
Putting It All Together
It's unlikely you'll need to utilize all three of these warm up sets for every exercise. In many cases, after you've already warmed up a muscle group under heavy loads, a single feeler set may only be in your best interests -- simply as a way of getting the mind used to the movement before adding more weight.
However, for heavy compound movements early in the training session, its probably in your best interest to perform all three types of warm-up. Start with a feeler set to get the blood flowing into the muscles and get used to the movement. Then, build up in weight using feeler sets, getting you close to your working set weight. And finally perform 2 quick reps with the working set weight or 10% higher, before you hit your first working set. By this point your nervous system should be plenty primed to moving big weight around with minimal fatigue.