Warming up, rest and recovery
Warming up
Warming up is not negotiable!
There are two types of warm-up:
A “RAMP warm-up” which you must do before a workout.
Warm-ups within a workout for specific exercises, e.g., for the back squat.
RAMP Warm-ups
RAMP: Range of motion; Activation; Movement; Potentiation
A RAMP warm up is a structured way to prepare the body and mind for hard, productive and safe training. It should take 10-15 minutes. The structure is:
Start with general movements and then move on to movements specific to your workout and/or sport.
Start with low intensity movements and progress to higher intensity movements at the end of the warm-up.
Range of motion work first, then muscular activation, then potentiation (fast and powerful movements).
Start the RAMP with 5-10 mins light aerobic work (bike, jog, rower), and then follow the suggested exercises in the videos in the Strata Performance app. You can add or swap exercises in the RAMP according to your personal needs and how you’re feeling on the day.
Warming up for specific exercises
For most exercises, and especially heavy compound movements with a barbell, you must do a warm-up in which you gradually add weight to the bar as you “work up to” the weight that you’re going to lift in your first set. This allows you to safely prepare your body for heavier weights and to recruit the motor units and muscle fibres you need to lift.
There are no strict rules on how to do this, but a good general approach is to start with 5 or so reps with the empty bar, and then gradually increase the weight and decrease the reps as you work towards the weight of your first “main set”, “working set” or “top set” — see the worked example below.
If you are feeling good, this may be enough; if you are feeling sluggish, stiff or low in confidence, adding 1-2 more steps of 2-5 reps may help.
Other nice approaches for rep numbers in your warm up sets might be:
5-4-3-2-1
5-5-3-3
In the exercise descriptions in your training programme you will normally see a prompt to do a graded barbell warm-up, e.g.
“Work up to 3 x 5 @ RPE 7 each set”
When warming up like this make sure that every rep is with best form. The warming up process is there to prepare you physically and mentally for the main sets – bad form in the warm up normally means bad form in the important sets!
For stability exercises and exercises that aren’t heavy and whole-body compound movements, warming up isn’t quite as important because you’re already warm from the previous exercises and the loads tend to be lighter. If it’s light, there is usually no need. If it’s heavy and you have the time, it’s often worth doing 1-2 sets of 5-8 reps at 60-80% of your working set weight. You will normally see a prompt for this in the exercise descriptions in your training programme.
Rest and recovery
Rest and recovery are equally as important as workouts for effective training
If you don’t correctly rest between sets or then you limit the effectiveness of the training that day.
If you don’t rest and recover sufficiently between sessions then you limit the amount of training stimulus you get from each session, you limit your long-term progression and you increase your risk of injury, overtraining and psychological burnout.
Rest between sets
The length of rest between sets depends on the goals of the session, the intensity of the lifts, the reason you’re doing a particular lift and what the lift is supersetted with (if anything).
When you skip or shorten rests the muscles feel tired as though something good is happening because it’s hard. But it’s hard because you didn’t rest enough and you can’t generate as much force as you could if you rested properly. If you’re not generating as much force as you could at any given intensity then you are not training strength or power efficiently, nor maximising muscle growth stimulus. So do your rests!
Normally each exercise in your training programme will suggest a rest time.
In general for whole body compound exercises such as squat, deadlift, bench press, bent over row, pull ups, rest should be 2-3 minutes, minimum, and up to 5 or 10 minutes if you have been training for a long time and are doing very heavy sets close to failure and near your maximum.
For accessory exercises, 1-2 minutes is normally sufficient, especially if supersetted with other exercises.
Sometimes rest will be deliberately shortened, but that will be for particular reasons.
To summarise, do your rests!
Rest and recovery between sessions
Rest between sessions will depend on the programme you’re on and the objectives you’re working towards. In general, there should be enough rest between sessions such that your muscles are not too sore or tired at the start of the next session.
Fuel well before and after strength training sessions, ideally with real foods (no powdered meal substitutes that commonly appear on YouTube adverts…) that provide a healthy balance of protein, carbohydrate, unsaturated fats, vitamins and minerals. Protein intake, timing and supplementation is a controversial and complex topic, but our general advice for someone engaged in regular training is to ensure you’re getting 1.4-1.6 grams per kilogram bodyweight per day, entirely from real food, and to top up with a high quality protein supplement only if your regular diet cannot meet this demand. Make your pre- and post-gym workout food part of this overall approach.