Proper Warm Up To Hit New PR's!

Since reading Never Let Go I have learned a ton of new information and have began my experimental phase with some of the different things Dan John spoke off. One thing that really caught my eye in this book was the section where he spoke of proper warm up to maximize your strength. Warm Up sets are crucial when going into any weight lifting routine but even more so during strength days. What the warm up is going to do for you is prep the Nervous System for what’s about to happen as well as fire those muscle fibers up to really maximize your gains. The one problem with warming up for big lifts is that many people do it incorrectly! I see it at the gym all the time. One of the many meatheads will throw 135 on the bar hit it 10 times, then 185 for 10, followed by 225 for 8-10, 315 for 8-10, then fail miserably on a new PR of 365, o yeah and each set has a 1-2 minute rest in between. The reason they failed to hit 365 is not because the weight was too much for them to handle but because the volume of the warm up was way too much and drained more energy then they should have. What the volume is in weight lifting is very simply the amount of sets and reps multiplied. In the above example the meathead did close to 40 reps on the bench before even attempting the max lift! That is enough total reps for an entire workout yet alone a warm up to hit a PR on a bench press. Following the David Tate style warm up is a much better idea and I guarantee you will hit a new PR on your next training session if followed correctly.
For many of you who don’t know David Tate is simply the man! Tate and Louie Simmons are the two main men behind the infamous Westside Barbell Club and EliteFTS. Tate has most likely forgotten more information on strength training in his lifetime then 99% of “Certified Personal Trainers” will ever know. In David Tates warm up he focusing more on bringing the weight up gradually while still performing an extremely low Volume leading up to the big lifts. An example of a Tate style warm up using the situation about may look something like this:
45 lb bar- 10 reps
135 lb- 5 reps
185- 3 reps
225- 3 reps
275-2 reps
315- 1-2 rep
365+ no problem
*All sets are given a 2-4 minute rest before moving on to the next weight
Now if you break down the volume of the Tate warm up it is half as much as the above as the above mentioned failed lift but is prepping the nervous system and firing those muscle fibers much more efficiently then banging out 10 reps at each weight. I experimented with this style warm up the other day while performing 1 arm DB presses and shattered my old PR. My previous best on the 1 hand press was one set of 5 reps with 95lb dumbbells that was also after performing the exercise for 4 straight weeks. Tuesday was the first time I have 1 arm pressed in about a month and I have also been nursing a tight left pec. I did the Tate style warm up and built up to 2 sets of 5 with the 100lb DB! Not a bad improvement just by altering the warm!
So to summarize how to properly warm up to break PRs on any major lift: Low volume warm-up while gradually building weight up. Take a sufficient rest period of 3-4 minutes on the big lifts. By tweaking these two things slightly you will be surprised on how much progress you will make with your strength gains!

Pictured is David Tate with Elite FTS. Still massive and strong as hell for a 40+ year old man!