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How Long Should My Warm-Up Be? Ask a PT

Last week, I talked about whether it is a good idea to follow a bodybuilding routine if you are a regular gym goer. I believe that you can follow any program that you like, but that a bodybuilding routine may not be optimal for your specific needs and capabilities.

This week, I’m answering a question about whether warm-ups are as important as some people make out.

Check out the first Ask a PT blog post here

How Long Should My Warm-Up Be?

Question: I saw a video on YouTube recently where a guy did a 15-minute warm-up before his workout. Is this necessary?

Answer: A 15-minute warm-up is excessive for most regular gymgoers. Unless you have an injury or mobility issue, or you are performing an incredibly intense workout (trying to get a new personal best for the deadlift for example).

Most of us do not have much free time to spend in the gym. A 30-40 minute workout is as good as we’re going to get.

Travelling there and back, getting changed, possibly having a shower, and talking to the gym staff all add up. Meaning that a 40-minute workout takes about 2 hours out of your day.

So, a 15-minute warm-up would constitute 40-50% of your entire workout time. It’s not practical.

If you are following a typical gym routine: 3 x 10 reps of dumbbell bench press (for example). Then you can get all the warm-up you need from performing a couple of sets at a lighter weight.

Say you normally use 30kg dumbbells for your 3 sets of 10. Drop the weight to 16kg and perform 1 set of 10 with perfect form. Increase the weight to 20kg and perform a second set.

You are now as warmed up for the dumbbell bench press as you can be. You have activated all of the relevant muscles (pectorals, deltoids, triceps), using the same movement patterns.

As I said earlier, this won’t apply if you have an injury or a mobility issue. For example, if you sit at a desk all day, you may find that your shoulders are slightly rounded. In this case, some specific exercises that target the upper back may be useful as a warm-up (Cable face-pulls, for example).

But if you are injury-free and have no mobility issues, then you can easily perform warm-up sets before each exercise and be fully warmed up. This will save you time, and it will also help you to practice the perfect technique.

As always, if you enjoy performing long warm-ups, then keep going. I’m not here to shame anybody’s warm-up technique. Just don’t feel guilty if you aren’t warming up for 15 minutes.