LtL's Personal Ranting Log

[IronWill]

Originally Posted by LtL

Haven't been in here for a while but I thought that this warranted a post. Every time I am in the gym I see people warming up like idiots: bench press 1pps for a set, then 2pps with a few bro taps then 2.5pps or even 3pps for an outright spotter upright row-fest. Now you might think that I'm ranting about the hands-on spotting but that's not even the biggest issue with this loading pattern. Let's take the spotter out of the equation. Say your top set is 3pps for 3 and the set you did before that was 2.5pps for 3. You only really have one working set there. The 2.5pps set is effectively your last warm-up. You then jump to a max set and maybe do some back off sets with 2.5 again. Apart from only getting one working set you also aren't getting the most out of it either. If you made smaller jumps your CNS would be primed and used to the heavier weights and you may get another rep or two out on the top set.

I'm not going to give a rigid plan here on how much to jump by for each attempt but as you get towards the heavier sets, use common sense and make them smaller: use half plates not full ones, then quarter plates or even the small biscuit plates. You'll get more work in and will miss less lifts. Win/win.

Al

Thanks for posting this. I was just thinking about this yesterday warming up on deads.

[LtL]

Just done 20minutes of stretching, mobility work, rolling and lacrosse ball work. I did home Graston therapy on my forearm before starting this and am now sat with the heat pad on my arm again. I don't normally log this stuff but I do some or all of this every night. If I don't do this I feel like crap and can't train properly either. This also cuts down my warm-up time at the start of the session by 50%.

Anyone who is serious about strength training needs to be doing this kind of stuff. If you're not injured I bet you have an area where you're lacking mobility or could just benefit from soft tissue work to improve recovery. I have experimented with various protocols but I seem to always come back to the core:

- Rolling on PVC pipe, mostly for upper body.
- Lat stretching.
- Hip mobility stretching.

Find what works for you. Use MobilityWOD.com, google Mike Robertson's stuff, EliteFTS.com has some solid articles on there and YouTube has loads especially from Kelly Starrett (search MobilityWOD and whatever your problem is). Hell you can even ask me, I've tweaked a fair few things over the years but trust me: if you do this regularly it WILL benefit you.

Al