THE M.A.X. muscle plan
By Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D, CSCS, FNSCA
IS A WARM-UP NECESSARY
BEFORE LIFTING?
It’s pretty much taken as gospel that you should warm up prior to working out. Warming up is associated with an array of physiological changes, including an enhanced circulation to muscles, increased transmission of nerve impulses, better oxygen and energy substrate delivery to working muscles and accelerated removal of metabolic waste.7 These alterations are claimed to enhance exercise performance as well as reduce the risk of exercise-related injury. Virtually every exercise physiology textbook and fitness professional says so. The warm-up consists of two basic components: general and specific. The general warm-up involves performing a brief bout of low-intensity cardio such as cycling, jogging or calisthenics.6 Its primary objective is to elevate core temperature and increase blood flow to
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the musculature. A direct correlation between muscle temperature and exercise performance exists, whereby a warm muscle elicits a stronger muscular contraction. As a general rule, the higher a muscle’s temperature (within a safe physiologic range), the stronger its contractility. Theoretically, the associated increase in force production should translate into higher mechanical tension on muscle fibers, and thus induce better muscular development. The specific warm-up is essentially an extension of the general warm-up. By using exercises that are similar to those in the workout, a specific warm-up allows you to “rehearse” the actual exercise being it’s performed, which seemingly helps to enhance performance during your working sets.6 As such, the exercises used in the specific warm-up should mimic the
actual movements in the workout as closely as possible. The only difference is that warmup performance is carried out at a low intensity (~50% of one repetition maximum or 1RM), with the set stopped well short of fatigue. Despite the apparently sound rationale behind this practice, research supporting beneficial effects of warming up has largely focused on performance in athletic endeavors such as jumping and sprinting.2,3 And while there is some evidence showing that a warm-up helps to improve low-rep sets designed to increase maximal strength1, no previous studies had directly investigated how it affects moderaterep, bodybuilding-type training; any perceived benefits associated with such training were based on logical speculation. Until now.
musculardevelopment.com November 2015