Do You Feel Warmups Are Really Necessary?

[Mephistopholes]

Of course warmups are necessary. End of story.

[Chez]

Of course warmups are necessary. End of story.

That's the way you debate! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yYDzLUH1NE

[zvxy]

How do we know warm-ups are more than just a placebo? Sure, warming up will cause CNS priming and thus more performance, but thinking of the greater picture.. how do things like blood flow, and preparedness actually prevent injuries? Hell, the medical community can't even decide on how cracking our knuckles works.

Furthermore, wouldn't the body adapt to the stress of having to do maximal attempts at any time? Bulgarian training systems follow the principle of training this, and do maximal attempts dozens (hundreds?) of times daily (sometimes with little warm-up).

Just some food for thought from a lurker.. personally, like others here, I do warm-ups just to gauge my working sets for the day / session.

[jchapman]

How do we know warm-ups are more than just a placebo? Sure, warming up will cause CNS priming and thus more performance, but thinking of the greater picture.. how do things like blood flow, and preparedness actually prevent injuries? Hell, the medical community can't even decide on how cracking our knuckles works.

Furthermore, wouldn't the body adapt to the stress of having to do maximal attempts at any time? Bulgarian training systems follow the principle of training this, and do maximal attempts dozens (hundreds?) of times daily (sometimes with little warm-up).

Just some food for thought from a lurker.. personally, like others here, I do warm-ups just to gauge my working sets for the day / session.

Aside from the performance increases, a warmup will make the connective tissue more pliable as it physically heats up. This can lead to injury prevention.

[zvxy]

How do we know warm-ups are more than just a placebo? Sure, warming up will cause CNS priming and thus more performance, but thinking of the greater picture.. how do things like blood flow, and preparedness actually prevent injuries? Hell, the medical community can't even decide on how cracking our knuckles works.

Furthermore, wouldn't the body adapt to the stress of having to do maximal attempts at any time? Bulgarian training systems follow the principle of training this, and do maximal attempts dozens (hundreds?) of times daily (sometimes with little warm-up).

Just some food for thought from a lurker.. personally, like others here, I do warm-ups just to gauge my working sets for the day / session.

Aside from the performance increases, a warmup will make the connective tissue more pliable as it physically heats up. This can lead to injury prevention.

And, after warming up the body is capable of handling more stress and load due to the priming of the system. Does this increased load outweigh the benefits of warming up? If someone is capable of a 700lb deadlift warmed up, and only 500lb cold.. would the 700lb or 500lb lift be safer and less deleterious on the body? Also have to take into account the amount of stims used to get past the central limiter of the body, and increase performance on a lift.

[jchapman]

How do we know warm-ups are more than just a placebo? Sure, warming up will cause CNS priming and thus more performance, but thinking of the greater picture.. how do things like blood flow, and preparedness actually prevent injuries? Hell, the medical community can't even decide on how cracking our knuckles works.

Furthermore, wouldn't the body adapt to the stress of having to do maximal attempts at any time? Bulgarian training systems follow the principle of training this, and do maximal attempts dozens (hundreds?) of times daily (sometimes with little warm-up).

Just some food for thought from a lurker.. personally, like others here, I do warm-ups just to gauge my working sets for the day / session.

Aside from the performance increases, a warmup will make the connective tissue more pliable as it physically heats up. This can lead to injury prevention.

And, after warming up the body is capable of handling more stress and load due to the priming of the system. Does this increased load outweigh the benefits of warming up? If someone is capable of a 700lb deadlift warmed up, and only 500lb cold.. would the 700lb or 500lb lift be safer and less deleterious on the body? Also have to take into account the amount of stims used to get past the central limiter of the body, and increase performance on a lift.

I don't understand.

[zvxy]

How do we know warm-ups are more than just a placebo? Sure, warming up will cause CNS priming and thus more performance, but thinking of the greater picture.. how do things like blood flow, and preparedness actually prevent injuries? Hell, the medical community can't even decide on how cracking our knuckles works.

Furthermore, wouldn't the body adapt to the stress of having to do maximal attempts at any time? Bulgarian training systems follow the principle of training this, and do maximal attempts dozens (hundreds?) of times daily (sometimes with little warm-up).

Just some food for thought from a lurker.. personally, like others here, I do warm-ups just to gauge my working sets for the day / session.

Aside from the performance increases, a warmup will make the connective tissue more pliable as it physically heats up. This can lead to injury prevention.

And, after warming up the body is capable of handling more stress and load due to the priming of the system. Does this increased load outweigh the benefits of warming up? If someone is capable of a 700lb deadlift warmed up, and only 500lb cold.. would the 700lb or 500lb lift be safer and less deleterious on the body? Also have to take into account the amount of stims used to get past the central limiter of the body, and increase performance on a lift.

I don't understand.

Warming up increases performance, but at what cost? Sure you may get increased injury prevention but would that outweigh the higher amount of weight the body can lift?

The muscles can be much more effectively primed than ligaments. If your muscles and ligaments can support 500lbs while cold, and your muscles can support 700lb while warmed up but NOT ligaments then you are in deep trouble.

So, throwing a lift over your head while cold wouldn't dislocate anything but then you warm up and throw something even heavier.. yeah..

[jchapman]

How do we know warm-ups are more than just a placebo? Sure, warming up will cause CNS priming and thus more performance, but thinking of the greater picture.. how do things like blood flow, and preparedness actually prevent injuries? Hell, the medical community can't even decide on how cracking our knuckles works.

Furthermore, wouldn't the body adapt to the stress of having to do maximal attempts at any time? Bulgarian training systems follow the principle of training this, and do maximal attempts dozens (hundreds?) of times daily (sometimes with little warm-up).

Just some food for thought from a lurker.. personally, like others here, I do warm-ups just to gauge my working sets for the day / session.

Aside from the performance increases, a warmup will make the connective tissue more pliable as it physically heats up. This can lead to injury prevention.

And, after warming up the body is capable of handling more stress and load due to the priming of the system. Does this increased load outweigh the benefits of warming up? If someone is capable of a 700lb deadlift warmed up, and only 500lb cold.. would the 700lb or 500lb lift be safer and less deleterious on the body? Also have to take into account the amount of stims used to get past the central limiter of the body, and increase performance on a lift.

I don't understand.

Warming up increases performance, but at what cost? Sure you may get increased injury prevention but would that outweigh the higher amount of weight the body can lift?

The muscles can be much more effectively primed than ligaments. If your muscles and ligaments can support 500lbs while cold, and your muscles can support 700lb while warmed up but NOT ligaments then you are in deep trouble.

So, throwing a lift over your head while cold wouldn't dislocate anything but then you warm up and throw something even heavier.. yeah..

Under what circumstances would someone's warm muscles be able to support a weight, but not their warm ligaments?

[Mephistopholes]

How do we know warm-ups are more than just a placebo? Sure, warming up will cause CNS priming and thus more performance, but thinking of the greater picture.. how do things like blood flow, and preparedness actually prevent injuries? Hell, the medical community can't even decide on how cracking our knuckles works.

Furthermore, wouldn't the body adapt to the stress of having to do maximal attempts at any time? Bulgarian training systems follow the principle of training this, and do maximal attempts dozens (hundreds?) of times daily (sometimes with little warm-up).

Just some food for thought from a lurker.. personally, like others here, I do warm-ups just to gauge my working sets for the day / session.

Aside from the performance increases, a warmup will make the connective tissue more pliable as it physically heats up. This can lead to injury prevention.

And, after warming up the body is capable of handling more stress and load due to the priming of the system. Does this increased load outweigh the benefits of warming up? If someone is capable of a 700lb deadlift warmed up, and only 500lb cold.. would the 700lb or 500lb lift be safer and less deleterious on the body? Also have to take into account the amount of stims used to get past the central limiter of the body, and increase performance on a lift.

I don't understand.

Warming up increases performance, but at what cost? Sure you may get increased injury prevention but would that outweigh the higher amount of weight the body can lift?

The muscles can be much more effectively primed than ligaments. If your muscles and ligaments can support 500lbs while cold, and your muscles can support 700lb while warmed up but NOT ligaments then you are in deep trouble.

So, throwing a lift over your head while cold wouldn't dislocate anything but then you warm up and throw something even heavier.. yeah..

I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but what you're arguing here is simply ridiculous.

Refer to Jchap's last statement.

[Josh O'Dell]

Something makes me think this post is based off my previous reply on the coc's vs adjutsable grippers, i believe someone new to grip or advanced would not advise someone to train without warming up?. Id rather not risk it, its kinda like working in chemicals and neglecting ppe because you think you can hack it.

[Wayne]

Warming up increases performance, but at what cost? Sure you may get increased injury prevention but would that outweigh the higher amount of weight the body can lift?

.... ..huh?

[Mike Sharkey]

I don't warm up.

[Electron]

Two cents, for what it's worth:

I've noticed that in press, grippers and weighted pull ups, I can handle max poundages with no warm up.

On deadlifting and bench, I can't.

Seems like the less iron involved in an exercise, the easier it is to go maximal with no priming.

Maybe a CNS thing, but not sure.

[Josh O'Dell]

All to there own, warming up works for me but its your own choice.

[lifesnotfair]

I think the answer is: it depends on what you're about to do.

If what you are about to do consists of many sets of REPS of things... then perhaps warmups are indeed a complete waste of time. We are not talking about jumping right into a true 1RM here, or a true maximal effort. If you are going to start your workout with sets of push-ups, dips, or pull-ups (things you can do for reps), then yeah, why warm-up? And just the act of doing these would warm you up sufficiently for your harder progressions (like that planche you seem to be working towards). So it makes sense to skip "warm up" in these kind of workouts, as body temperature will rise by doing these sub-maximal repetitions.

Now..... you want to attempt a 1RM with no warm-up? then I suggest you watch the Olympics. You said you're 39 so being older than me, maybe you've seen them before me. But watch again and watch videos of the training rooms. Show me a single olympic weight lifter who goes attempts his Snatches or Clean+Jerks completely cold. Then show me a sprinter who just gets out of bed and completely cold goes and runs 100m or 200m. Last but not least, since you're a "bodyweight kind of guy" (which is awesome BTW), try to find an elite gymnast who, before his Rings routine, is completely cold and does absolutely nothing in the hour before his attempt. I would be quite surprised, to say the least, if you could find examples of any of the above mentioned.

[paul valpreda]

I have friends at the gym who are still performing their "warm up" sets when I have completed my workout and am leaving the gym for the day. How necessary is that? I feel it's an individual thing and my personal system is to warm up as quickly as possible and get to the meat and potatoes of the workout. I have trained with my friends before and by the time their "warm ups" are completed, you have no energy left for a good workout. To each his own...

[paul valpreda]

I believe that the human body has to be ready to function or perform at any random moment. In most cases, there is not the time or opportunity to warm up before some kind of stress or demand is placed on the body. Being in good, all-round condition is warm up enough to be able do do things without having to prepare for them. Life doesn't always allow us to be prepared and warmed-up for random physical demands placed upon us. If you're at the gym and want to warm up, go ahead. Like so many other things in life, I think warm ups or extended periods of warm ups are overrated and one's time could be better spent actually doing the work necessary to get in some kind of good physical condition.

[speedy]

I think the answer is: it depends on what you're about to do.

If what you are about to do consists of many sets of REPS of things... then perhaps warmups are indeed a complete waste of time. We are not talking about jumping right into a true 1RM here, or a true maximal effort. If you are going to start your workout with sets of push-ups, dips, or pull-ups (things you can do for reps), then yeah, why warm-up? And just the act of doing these would warm you up sufficiently for your harder progressions (like that planche you seem to be working towards). So it makes sense to skip "warm up" in these kind of workouts, as body temperature will rise by doing these sub-maximal repetitions.

Now..... you want to attempt a 1RM with no warm-up? then I suggest you watch the Olympics. You said you're 39 so being older than me, maybe you've seen them before me. But watch again and watch videos of the training rooms. Show me a single olympic weight lifter who goes attempts his Snatches or Clean+Jerks completely cold. Then show me a sprinter who just gets out of bed and completely cold goes and runs 100m or 200m. Last but not least, since you're a "bodyweight kind of guy" (which is awesome BTW), try to find an elite gymnast who, before his Rings routine, is completely cold and does absolutely nothing in the hour before his attempt. I would be quite surprised, to say the least, if you could find examples of any of the above mentioned.

I never said they didn't warm up or I could find the ones you listed. YOU are taking specific examples of things that I never even said were true. I just said in GENERAL how important is a warm-up. But this argument/thread is getting blown way out of proportion and my posts are clearly being taken out of context. So I end my last post regarding this thread. Do you and I will do me. I will continue not to warm-up for how I workout, my goals, and believe me i push myself at times quite hard I yet to do a warm-up. I used to do them and after stopping them and going with no warm-ups I saw zero benefit. But it also comes down to what are you training for; what tools/methods are you using; what were the circumstances prior to you starting your session? Clearly this can be taken and attacked by many angles but I clearly see that some do agree with me while many don't. But those that don't might not do the kind of workouts I do and have the same goals such as me which goes to show such questions might not be best to asked but researched with keeping ones goals in mind not the goals of others.

[Norden]

Physiologically warming up will get your body in a better condition to perform. Enzymes will be more effective etc. Just something that may be worth bringing up.

[lifesnotfair]

Dude, you sound so defensive in your reply... I just re-read my own reply and do not feel I was attacking you. Please do not take it that way. :-)

[Ivarboneless]

Not only do Gymnasts warm up but they also peak at a very young age compared to most sports.

If we're talking strength, gymnasts peak in upper 20's similar to most sports. Gymnasts indeed warmup for quite a while before beginning competition. There is usually a 1-2hr warmup period before event warmups even start. That said, my rings specific warmup was very limited. My body was warm, but I would only pause one cross and call it a day as far as serious strength warmup goes (and my rings set was almost pure strength). I found that with bodyweight skills specific warmups tended to tire you rather than prime you. It was best to be warm overall from some jogging and very light work and then jump right into the heavy loads.

I suppose since the OP is done with the topic my opinion is in too late, but I found the discussion interesting.

My analysis:

The importance of warmups depends greatly on the exercises to be performed. When I was a gymnast training exclusively bodyweight movements, I did no specific warmup for my reps sets. For example, if I was going to do three sets of 30 chins, I just went and jumped into three sets of 30 chins with no warmup. With planches I usually did a single one minute handstand as a warmup and jumped into my planches and planche pushups. Essentially, bodyweight exercises require almost no warmup if the moves are simple even if they may be difficult (maltese, invert, etc.). In contrast, I found that I liked to have more of a warmup for a complex maneuver that involved transferring leverages (pineda, azaryan, butterfly, etc.).

Bodyweight dips, chins, pushups, etc., don't need a warmup because they themselves are warmup exercises (submaximal attempts that create bloodflow and prime CNS). More difficult exercises like handstand pushups, crosses, maltese, etc., benefitted from a light warmup. I usually did one set of two handstand pushups and then my max sets. Crosses I would do a quick paused cross, then start my work. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I have recently been training with weights which seem to benefit from a much more extensive warmup. While I can get my body warm from a jog and perform well on rings, there is no way I could go for a jog and then hit my bench max.

I think warmups do wonders for "priming" your body to do max efforts. There is no way I could close my hard #3 without a warmup, and I'm so far off that you would think I couldn't even do it, but after some warmup sets, I can sometimes hit a double with it. Similarly, weights that I can rep with on bench and deadlift feel heavy if I jump into them too quickly. I think warmups for weighted exercises do a lot to prepare your CNS for maximal effort. And, of course, having a warm body with good circulation helps to prevent injury.

Warmup also seems to become more important as you advance in caliber. As an entry level athlete, warmup doesn't seem to be as important. As an elite athlete, you demand the absolute peak capability of your body and it requires everything to be in sync. Warmup helps this. A beginner on grippers can probably give a given gripper a max attempt with no warmup, but I would bet serious coin that the grip superstars all warm up before a max effort and they would probably come in significantly under their best if they didn't.

Taken to the extreme, doing no warmup is like rolling out of bed at 3am and performing at your best. I doubt anyone can do this. If you are active at work, then your body may already be "primed" for activity lessening the need for warmup. Some variety of warmup is definitely essential to performance and helps to prevent injury. That is a fact. What that warmup is and how extensive it is will vary depending on the nature of the exercise.

[Josh O'Dell]

Well put Ivarboneless

[Mike Sharkey]

Not only do Gymnasts warm up but they also peak at a very young age compared to most sports.

If we're talking strength, gymnasts peak in upper 20's similar to most sports. Gymnasts indeed warmup for quite a while before beginning competition. There is usually a 1-2hr warmup period before event warmups even start. That said, my rings specific warmup was very limited. My body was warm, but I would only pause one cross and call it a day as far as serious strength warmup goes (and my rings set was almost pure strength). I found that with bodyweight skills specific warmups tended to tire you rather than prime you. It was best to be warm overall from some jogging and very light work and then jump right into the heavy loads.

I suppose since the OP is done with the topic my opinion is in too late, but I found the discussion interesting.

My analysis:

The importance of warmups depends greatly on the exercises to be performed. When I was a gymnast training exclusively bodyweight movements, I did no specific warmup for my reps sets. For example, if I was going to do three sets of 30 chins, I just went and jumped into three sets of 30 chins with no warmup. With planches I usually did a single one minute handstand as a warmup and jumped into my planches and planche pushups. Essentially, bodyweight exercises require almost no warmup if the moves are simple even if they may be difficult (maltese, invert, etc.). In contrast, I found that I liked to have more of a warmup for a complex maneuver that involved transferring leverages (pineda, azaryan, butterfly, etc.).

Bodyweight dips, chins, pushups, etc., don't need a warmup because they themselves are warmup exercises (submaximal attempts that create bloodflow and prime CNS). More difficult exercises like handstand pushups, crosses, maltese, etc., benefitted from a light warmup. I usually did one set of two handstand pushups and then my max sets. Crosses I would do a quick paused cross, then start my work. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I have recently been training with weights which seem to benefit from a much more extensive warmup. While I can get my body warm from a jog and perform well on rings, there is no way I could go for a jog and then hit my bench max.

I think warmups do wonders for "priming" your body to do max efforts. There is no way I could close my hard #3 without a warmup, and I'm so far off that you would think I couldn't even do it, but after some warmup sets, I can sometimes hit a double with it. Similarly, weights that I can rep with on bench and deadlift feel heavy if I jump into them too quickly. I think warmups for weighted exercises do a lot to prepare your CNS for maximal effort. And, of course, having a warm body with good circulation helps to prevent injury.

Warmup also seems to become more important as you advance in caliber. As an entry level athlete, warmup doesn't seem to be as important. As an elite athlete, you demand the absolute peak capability of your body and it requires everything to be in sync. Warmup helps this. A beginner on grippers can probably give a given gripper a max attempt with no warmup, but I would bet serious coin that the grip superstars all warm up before a max effort and they would probably come in significantly under their best if they didn't.

Taken to the extreme, doing no warmup is like rolling out of bed at 3am and performing at your best. I doubt anyone can do this. If you are active at work, then your body may already be "primed" for activity lessening the need for warmup. Some variety of warmup is definitely essential to performance and helps to prevent injury. That is a fact. What that warmup is and how extensive it is will vary depending on the nature of the exercise.

so maybe a better questions is do you warm up for max attempts, or in what situations or for what exercises do you warm up for.

[Josh O'Dell]

I have never set and debated what excercise i need to warm up on i have always stretched and do a light warmup before any workout and the reason i do is because i injured my shoulder when i was younger and my doctor explained how lifting cold plain and simple causes those types of injurys. I also believe there are alot of good post out of this.

[Autolupus]

I think the topic was specifically asking about warm ups for grippers?

My answer would be that if you are going for a max then yes...if your work out is sub max of 5-8 reps then no.

When you start hitting #3+ then yes also...some people use the #3 as a warm up!

Just out of interest Speedy how does your gripper workout look and what is your max gripper parallel close?

+ I remember you from the since gone BW forums!