Jumping right into your working sets with heavy weights is a great way to kill your performance while also setting yourself up for a backiotomy sometime in the near future. It only takes a few sets to prime your nervous system for lifting heavy weights while also preparing your muscles and joints to handle the strain. Here’s how to do it.

Mobility Warm-up First

Now, before you slap weights on the bar and get to hammering, it’s best if you first do some mobility work. During each strength and power day, we start with a mobility-based warm-up that starts on the ground and works up to our feet. It addresses the spine, the hips, the shoulders, all the good stuff. You’d be wise to do the same. It’ll keep your joints healthy and make it easier for you to achieve good positions while lifting.

Alright. That covered, let’s get on with the lifting warm-up progression.

Warming Up to Heavy Weights

Here goes:

Start light, then go heavier.

That’s it. Move along with your day and do something productive like throwing out all of those papers you’ve collected in your desk that you know you don’t need anymore but you’re hoarding because what if a government agent suddenly appears at your door looking for your dog’s license from 2013…

Okay, there is a bit more to it than start light and go heavier.

But you do start light, then go heavier. Here’s how. (This process is mostly designed for barbell-derived lifts like deadlifts, squats, bench presses, and overhead presses. But you can extrapolate it to dumbbell lifts.)

Start by putting something very light for you on the bar. We’ll call it an @6RPE. A 6 is a weight that you can move with max velocity with very little effort. If you like percentages, it’s probably somewhere around 30 percent of your one-rep max on that lift. You don’t max out on all lifts though, right? You’re not hitting a 1RM dumbbell bench press – not unless you want to shred your shoulders like cheap mozzarella. And it’s not always prudent to max out. (We never have HPPM members max out.) That’s why the @6RPE is so useful. If you can easily move it very fast, that’s a great place to start.

Do 5 quick reps with that weight.

Wait a minute or a little more, then pop a bit more weight on the bar or grab heavier dumbbells. We’re talking a moderate type weight. Like, around 50% of the weight you plan to do your first working set at. For example, let’s say you’re deadlifting and plan to do your first working set at 405. You’d do something like 225 for this warm-up set. And you’ll do 3 reps.

Wait a minute or more, then go up to about 75% of where you plan to start your working sets. Keeping with the 405 deadlift example, you’d do about 315 for this set. And you’ll do 1 rep.

Wait yourself another minute, then go to 90% of where you plan to start your working sets. Do one rep with that weight. In our 405 example, that would be 365 or so. 

Now, take a minute or two and start your working sets.

Here’s how it looks in list form:

Warm-up Set 1: 5 reps with a very light weight

Warm-up Set 2: 3 reps with a moderate weight (about 50% of first working set weight)

Warm-up Set 3: 1 rep with a heavier weight (about 75% of first working set)

Warm-up Set 4: 1 rep with a heavier weight (about 90% of first working set)

Do Yourself a Proper Warm-up

Hit some mobility to get the juices flowing, maintain joint health, and prep your body to achieve good positions while lifting. Once you do that, follow the plan laid out above to progressively increase weights up to your working sets. And do that every time you lift the heavy weights.