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Warm ups are important a proper one will lower your risk of injury.

Increase your strength by preparing your nervous system for higher stress levels and overall help you

reach your fitness goals faster.

While most beginners understand the importance of warming up before lifting weights they don't know

how it's done correctly.

Before we go over the optimal warmup routine for lifting weights I want to discuss three common warmup

mistakes that you will see a lot in the gym.

Number one on the list is too much cardio.

When talking about a good warm up.

Most people think of some sort of cardio to get their blood flowing.

The problem with these full body cardio warm ups is that they don't prepare your central nervous system.

All the major exercises you should be doing in the gym involve unique movement and target specific body

part.

No amount of carbs you will get your muscles and your central nervous system ready for such a task.

In fact it usually is counterproductive.

The more you run or bike to warm up before lifting heavy weights the more you deplete your glycogen

stores.

Glycogen is the primary fuel your muscles use for energy production and to avoid using it all before

you even get to your first exercise.

Make sure to keep your warm up cardio to around 5 minutes max.

Warm up Mistake number 2 is static stretching before your workout.

Don't get me wrong stretching is a vital part of any workout routine but it's timing is just as important.

Research has shown that static stretching before your workout does not prevent injuries and does little

to improve flexibility.

In some cases it might even decrease athletic performance due to the damage that can cause your muscle

tissue.

So instead of stretching before your workout you should do it afterwards.

This will prevent injuries a lot more effectively.

The last mistake is a lack of progression in your warm up routine.

When preparing for their workout most people will do one or two sets of 10 to 15 reps with only the

bar and then go straight to the first working set.

Just like cardio.

This strategy will do little to prepare your nervous system for the stress.

It's about to be under.

You need to build up tension by doing a series of progressively heavier warmup sets and the heavier

the weight in your first working set.

The longer you want to prepare for it.

So the million dollar question is how do you get close to your working weight without fatiguing yourself

in the process.

The obvious problem with a progressive warm up is that even though it most effectively prepares your

central nervous system it can wear you out before you even reach your first working set.

So to avoid unnecessary fatigue you should increase the weight in each one I've said.

While decreasing the number of repetitions.

In practice this means you do a warm up sequence consisting of three to four warmup sets and here you

start by doing 8 reps with only the bar in your second set.

You lift 50 percent of your first working set for 5 reps in your third warmup said.

You continue going up with the wage to 70 percent of your first working set and decrease the number

of reps to 3.

Now depending on how heavy lift you might want to do a fourth set but because beginners usually use

lighter weight this last set is optional.

Please rest 60 seconds between each one of said and three minutes between the last warmup set and your

first working set.