Begin with the End in Mind: Warm-up Protocol for Barbell Lifts
Sarah Walls
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Often I witness athletes spending upwards of 15-minutes dedicated to their non-barbell warm-up; this includes initial mobility, SMR, general dynamic, etc. Only to make a beeline for the squat rack and load up some weight to get to work. With this approach, yes, you could get hurt - although I’d say that’s unlikely - but what you’ll definitely get yourself is poor CNS readiness, an un-grooved pattern for the session, and a shitty training day.
Personally, unless I’m experiencing a sudden limit in mobility or extreme soreness, I will forgo that style general warm-up in favor of shooting hoops for 5-10-min. For advanced athletes, it's really all about knowing your body. Regardless of the approach, once the general phase has been completed it’s time to get into the specific warm-up for the day and get primed for an awesome session.
It probably goes without saying, but this protocol is only applicable when using barbell lifts. It’s pretty simple, but many people rush the barbell warm up sets. I assume this is because they don’t know how to properly hit their needed repetitions without overdoing it. So, they’re afraid of going into their work sets pre fatigued from too many warm up sets. But, they blow it by not getting in enough and end up starting their work sets with he CNS still trying to get on the same page as your brain.
So, one of the most important benefits of a warm up is the CNS activation/excitement. Usually, you hear the benefits being blood flow, extra GPP, technique work, etc. but in this case the goal is to get everything firing fast and strong.
You want to feel GREAT going into that first work set.
In fact, you want to be chomping at the bit to crush weight. Teetering on the edge of freaking out if you don’t get started. That is CNS excitement. That readiness.
This is how your should feel when properly warmed up.
Here is a standard warm-up protocol I like to use with athletes - percentages are based off of weight to be used during work sets:
bar x10 (ALWAYS - if you think you’re too advanced for a bar warmup, then that proves to me you’re not; so re-categorize yourself as intermediate, at best, and add in that bb set)
50% x 10
70% x 5-8
80% x 3-5
90% x 1-3
Truth-be-told, this is a very subjective process. Reps need to be dictated by how the athlete is feeling in that moment. If they are struggling to get in the groove, then they should be pushed to hit the higher rep number on each warm-up until their body finally reaches a point of CNS excitability.
On the other hand, if they’re ready to get moving, then I prefer to have them go through the minimum to keep them focused on the work sets.
You can (and I have) argued in favor of the opposite approach for both examples, but this would be my default approach.
If the athlete you’re working with is too immature to make these calls on their own, then err on the side of the higher volume warm-up.
