Rest between warmup sets

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Rest between warmup sets

by Paul
(Vancouver, Canada)

Quick question for you this time, Josh. How much rest time should I leave between warmup sets?

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Rest between warmup sets

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Rest Between Warm Up Sets
by: Josh -- Author WLC Program

Hey Paul,

One of the guidelines to follow is to never wear yourself down during your warm up sets.

So you never do high reps at all. You increase the weight as you go. But never really push yourself at all during warm ups. You just want your body to get acclimated to the heavier weights on each successive warm up set.

All of that you probably already know...

So how long do you rest between those warm up sets is your question.

Rest as much as you need in between warm up sets. This is usually only about 30 seconds or so. If you feel like you might have pushed it a little too far during a warm up set, rest a little longer.

It all comes down to being ready for your working set. The most important thing is to lift heavier weight each workout. So you want to do warm ups properly so you can be ready to lift the heaviest weight possible.

So if you need more than 30 seconds between your last warm up set and your working set, take it. There is no hard number for rest between warm up sets... but 30 seconds is usually about right since you aren't trying to wear yourself down and won't be doing many reps for warm ups on the WLC Program.

Hope this answers your question completely Paul. If not, just respond here and I'll make sure I answer any other questions you have.

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help with warm up weight
by: Anonymous

Your answer raised a question I've been wondering about. How close to your working weight should warm up sets get? If warm ups should not involve 10+ reps, I'm guessing that the weight I use can get close to my working set weight. Any clarification on this would be helpful.

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The Last Warm Up Set,,,
by: Josh -- Author WLC Program

The last warm up set before your actual working set should be about 10% lighter than the weight you'll be using for your working set.

Only the last warm up set before the working set should be that heavy and it should only be for a rep or two at most.

And as always, if you think you need more warm up sets to get ready for a given weight, then do more warm ups. But don't wear yourself down with high reps and heavy weight before your working set.

So, let's say you're going to use 100 pounds on a given exercise. And 100 pounds for that exercise is heavy for you. So you need a decent number of warm up sets. You would start with about 50 pounds and work your way up to 10% less than 100 pounds. 10% less than 100 pounds is 90 pounds. So your last working set should be with 90 pounds.

I hope that answers your question. If not, please let me know here.

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thanks!
by: Anonymous

These 2 answers may seem like no brainers to some readers, but I really appreciate these pieces of information. Didn't like just guessing what to do. All your help is really appreciated. -- Craig

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No problem Craig...
by: Josh -- Author WLC Program

If you have any other questions Craig, just let me know. I'm here to help any time you have a question.

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