I'm curious as to what you guys are doing for your warm up routines. I've been all over the place with it and can't seem to settle on any one thing. I used to just do like 10-15 minutes of cardio on a tread mill or elliptical, and then just go hit the weights. I don't do any cardio at all now prior to lifting. As an example, say I'm warming up for chest. I've just started with light weights on the bar for a couple sets and then hit it. I've tried doing cable cross overs and then go to the bench. I've tried doing a complete full body type workout with light weights and then hit it heavy on everything I expect to do that day.. What do you guys do and for how long before actually beginning what you'd call your actual workout, and what if any indicator do you have to tell yourself your actually warmed up?
I don't do any cardio before starting a strength workout. Instead, I do the first one (or two) set of the intended exercise with a light weight (e.g. 50% of the intended heavy weight). This helps to (*) loosen up the muscles which will be involved in the exercise, (*) give me the possibility to sense whether there is any stiffness or injury in that muscle group, and (*) get me in the groove, helps me to recall how the movement is supposed to be executed. Each rep of the warm up set(s) is slowly executed, as if I'm doing it in slow motion. I do this at each exercise which uses a muscle (group) which has not been used before during that training session. What I mean: if I start the session with a leg exercise will I do warm up sets as described above. If I then move on to do two variations of biceps curl will I do a warm up at the first exercise, but no warm up at the second exercise. The biceps was not involved in the leg exercise, which is why it deserves a warm up set.
Lately I've been keeping my rep range on the high side, as in 15 - 20 reps per set. With a rep range like that, I don't really feel I need to warm up at all. The only exception is on leg day. My knees are definitely my weakest point, so I like to do a few sets of leg extensions to warm up my knees before I get into squats or leg presses.
Just hit the heaviest set at the sweet spot of not too early or late. That should be when you are strongest and it takes some time to get there, but, not too much time. Then stop.
Maybe a few light stretches or walk a lap around the track or crank out 20 pushups.... Otherwise I don’t warm up. I go straight into a big muscle group set with the highest (or lowest) weight and then I pyramid (or reverse pyramid).