Warming up? What do you think?

[PECDEC85]

I've been working out for a few years now, believe it or not warm-ups just became part of my routine and the strength gains made are becoming unbelievable! My question though is my warm up (3 sets of 10) is fatiguing my muscles before my 5 sets of 5 even gets started ... what are some other ways to warm up a muscle group...

In my case my back is much larger then my chest (I was a wrestler in high school and my training routine focused mostly on my back and incline bench press) ... well, now I want to balance this out by getting my chest back to proportion with the rest of my body so I am going mainly for chest rather then shoulders, BI's or anything else (upperbody anyway)... I seem to lift more weight when I do not warm up, but I am always sore the next few days (I get a much better/complete workout) when I do warm up....

Well, what are your opinions on warming up and any chest training tips for the newbie???

PD

[speedracer59]

I personally dont stretch. I use light weight 2 or three sets. Sometime if Im really bound up I jump on one of those Bicycles with the moving handles for a few minutes first.

[bigpump23]

I don't stretch, i guess you can call my first set a warm up as it usually is 10 reps, but I don't even do that anymore

[Chris]

If I do high weight I tend not to stretch or really do a "warm up" set as it seems to make things harder when you go heavy. So, if you are going to do reps as low as two or three I would say, don't strecth or so "warm ups". For my normal routine I will do two warm-up sets of like 12-15 reps then 3 sets of like 6-8, I got that from someone here actually. It helps out A LOT in my opinion. I have seen a tremendous increase in strength. So, I would say do warm ups and you will see your weight go up. Pyramiding always helps too, staring with really high reps like 15 then going down to like 2-4. Thats just my experience though.

My $.02,
Chris

[Gary]

A set of pushups is all I do for warmup on chest day. Sometimes, I will do max reps but usually about 75% of my max reps.

[blm]

I personally have to stretch, my body is always knotted up so I do it more out of necessity. And it helps.

[Buffindiandude]

Stretching is absolutely key for me. It helps avoid niggling muscle pulls and strains. I learned all my stretching when I played rugby a few years ago. A good book is "Stretching" by Bob Anderson - it has key stretches for various sports but you can get the general idea of how to safely do this for various parts of the body.

As it is, I think I need to review and possibly augment my own stretching as my rotator cuff is bothering me (see thread on shoulder joint limiting bench press....).

My opinion is that 10 minutes of stretching is well worth it, because it may help avoid an injury that could keep you out of the gym for days.

[Buffindiandude]

By the way, the picture of Tom Platz doing the splits in Arnold's BB book always gets me... I mean, wow! To have someone with Tom's legs do this blows my mind...

[blm]

Hell yeah, I've seen pics of Ronnie Coleman doing splits too. Crazy shit! Proper stretching is nothing but beneficial.