Warming up can improve performance in the gym by boosting blood flow and raising body temperature, which can help prevent injuries. What does an effective warm-up look like?
Dr. Mike Israetel, who has been lifting for 25 years and holds a PhD in the field, continues to refine his workout approach. He shared five key lessons he’s learned recently, including his warm-up strategy designed to improve gains and elevate lifting performance.
Israetel’s Five Tips for Improving Gains
- Proper & Specific Warm-Ups
- Long Length Partials
- Myo-Reps
- Back-Foot-Down Lunges
- High-Frequency Training for Fast-Recovering Muscles
[Related: Is Ego Lifting Actually Bad?]
1. Proper & Specific Warm-Ups
Israetel explains the 12-8-4 warm-up method is particularly effective. It uses a 30-rep max weight to complete a set of 12 reps, followed by short rest. Then, perform eight reps using a 20-rep max weight. Finish with four reps, using a 10-rep max.
This method exposes muscles to heavier weights while conserving energy for upcoming working sets. It can enhance neural and technical readiness for exercise.
Using this warmup for every exercise in a session is unnecessary, especially if the workout targets similar muscle groups. After completing the first exercise, warm up for subsequent movements by performing a set of eight reps with a 20-rep max before jumping into your working sets. This can be repeated throughout the workout, ensuring efficiency and preparedness without overexertion.
“The 12-8-4 system is really good,” Dr. Israetel said. “Have a system where you do multiple warm-up sets that get progressively heavier and closer to failure as you go, but start easy and get tough toward the end.”
Dr. Israetel skips general warm-ups, citing a study published in the Biology of Sport journal that suggests performance remains consistent if the body is warmed up through the exercise without cardio. (1) The study highlights that general, specific, and combined warm-ups enhance muscle performance, providing flexibility in how individuals prepare for physical activity.
2. Long Length Partials
Dr. Israetel performed exercises using a full range of motion for muscle growth. However, recent studies suggest the bottom half of a movement — where the muscle is in a lengthened position — can result in significant muscle growth and, in some cases, even outperform a full range of motion. (2)
After experimentation, Dr. Israetel found that stimulus-to-fatigue ratio and energy expenditure, particularly for lengthened partial movements, were often equal to or better than those of full-range exercises. For instance, he noticed greater muscle growth when using partial reps in exercises like calf raises and inverted skull crushers compared to full range of motion.
3. Myo-Reps
Myo-reps are a training technique that involves performing multiple short sets with minimal rest in between. The process begins with completing 10 to 20 standard reps, followed by a brief rest of two to three seconds or five to 10 seconds. Then, perform an additional five to 10 reps, repeating this cycle.
The key benefit of myo-reps is pre-exhausting the muscles, pushing them close to failure multiple times. Short rest periods allow enough recovery to continue, repeatedly bringing the muscles back to the edge of failure for maximum effectiveness.
Myo-reps vs traditional reps grow muscles the same amount. Myo-reps grow in half the time.
—Dr. Mike Israetel
Myo-reps can be effective when specific conditions related to rest and recovery are met:
- Limitation arises from the muscle, not the cardiovascular system, as steady breathing indicates.
- Sufficient neurological and psychological recovery has occurred.
- Supporting muscles aren’t overly fatigued.
- Target muscles recover enough during short rest periods to perform at least five additional reps.
4. Back-Foot-Down Lunges
This technique, adapted from IFBB Pro Jared Feather, highlights a unique approach to maximizing glute activation during lunges. Feather discovered that the lead leg — the one extending forward — plays a critical role in glute engagement. By positioning the glutes for maximum stretch, isolation, and contraction, the lead leg becomes the primary driver, while the back leg primarily provides stability.
Many distribute effort between both legs during lunges, pushing off with the front and back legs. However, Feather refined his technique from a glute hypertrophy perspective by using only light touches with the back leg and directing nearly all the load onto the front leg.
To enhance this focus, Dr. Israetel recommends positioning the back leg with the shoe face down when stabilizing. This subtle adjustment shifts most of the workload to the front leg and creates enough discomfort to demand greater concentration on proper form and glute activation.
5. High-Frequency Training for Fast-Recovering Muscles
Dr. Israetel once believed training a muscle more than twice a week was absurd, convinced there wasn’t enough recovery time. “For a long time, I trained everything once every five days or twice weekly,” he shared. His progress skyrocketed when he increased the frequency of training his biceps, delts, and forearms to three, four, or even six times a week in short sessions.
Smaller muscle groups recover more quickly than larger ones. Waiting several days between sessions is unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. Dr. Israetel suggests increasing training frequency can benefit various muscle groups, saying, “It’s all about recovery time courses. If you train a muscle and it is no longer sore, you’re recovered and good to go again.”
Dr. Israetel recommends increasing frequency to once per week, starting with a lower volume for each session. As recovery progresses, volume can be gradually increased every session.
“You’ll get more total work. Nothing better predicts muscle growth than recoverable total weekly work,” Dr. Israetel concluded.
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References
- Andrade, D. C., Henriquez-Olguín, C., Beltrán, A. R., Ramírez, M. A., Labarca, C., Cornejo, M., Álvarez, C., & Ramírez-Campillo, R. (2015). Effects of general, specific and combined warm-up on explosive muscular performance. Biology of sport, 32(2), 123–128. https://doi.org/10.5604/20831862.1140426
- Androulakis Korakakis, P., Wolf, M., Coleman, M., Burke, R., Piñero, A., Nippard, J., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2023). Optimizing Resistance Training Technique to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy: A Narrative Review. Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology, 9(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/jfmk9010009
Featured image via Shutterstock/PeopleImages.com – Yuri A
