How Many Warm-up Sets Are Sufficient?

When preparing to lift heavy weights, it's crucial to perform warm-up sets. Typically, you'll start with the bar, gradually adding weight, and continue increasing the load. But how many increments are necessary to feel adequately warmed up? And what are the consequences of doing too many or too few?

Warm-up sets are the final step before starting your lift. Everything before that is optional, but it’s beneficial to engage in cardio (or other movements) to raise your body temperature. Additionally, you may choose to stretch or practice techniques before moving into your sets. (Check out our complete guide for creating your lifting warm-up here.)

Begin with the bar

If you're starting with a barbell lift, the first thing you'll do is use the empty bar. Whether you're preparing for squats, bench press, snatches, or another lift, performing a set with the empty bar helps your body re-familiarize itself with the movement and assess how any tight muscles or past injuries feel during the exercise.

Barbend surveyed seven elite powerlifters and weightlifters about their squat warm-up routines. Several of them mentioned they like to pause at the bottom of their empty bar squats to loosen up, or even do multiple sets with just the empty bar.

How many reps should you perform with the bar? There’s a wide range of opinions, so it’s not a big deal. The main goal is to get comfortable with the movement before adding weight. Some lifters prefer to keep the rep range the same as their working sets (e.g., five reps with the bar if their goal is to work up to heavy sets of five), while others might start with 10 or 12 reps for lighter work.

Perform three to five jumps

Among experienced lifters, there are many different ideas about what weights to use for the next few sets.

If you're aiming for a low rep range in your work sets (one to three reps), you might want to start your warm-ups with 50%, 60%, and 70%, before progressing to 80%, 85%, and beyond. (More on why smaller jumps are beneficial as you get closer to your goal in a moment.)

For higher-rep sets, such as 10 reps, you might prefer to start lighter with the first warm-up and adjust the rest of the jumps accordingly.

Another factor to consider: someone working up to a lower weight, like 135 pounds, likely won't need as many warm-up sets as a powerhouse going for, say, 500 pounds. The lighter lifter may need to spend more time on empty-bar sets or even some cardio beforehand to ensure they’re properly warmed up, while the stronger lifter can likely add plates to each set (135, 225, 315, 405) as they gradually build up.

A good guideline is to take three to five weight jumps, spaced roughly evenly between the empty bar and your working weight for the day. For instance, a person squatting 135 might do the bar (45), then 95, then 115, then 135.

Be cautious when approaching PR attempts

Sometimes, approaching a personal record feels like sneaking up on it to avoid startling it. If you're aiming to squat 200 pounds for the first time, you wouldn't leap directly from an easy warm-up to your goal weight. Instead, after reaching 155, you might try 185. Based on how that feels, you can decide whether to attempt 195, and from there, assess whether you're ready for 200 or perhaps even more.

In short, you don’t want to be the person who makes too big a jump and misses the attempt. How you feel at 135 won’t tell you if you're ready for 200. It’s useful to treat those final warm-up sets as a way of testing the waters, with each attempt informing your decision for the next one.

What happens if you choose the wrong warm-ups?

If your jumps are too large, you risk missing a PR attempt or, worse, overshooting a normal working set for the day. You might also arrive at your working set without feeling properly warmed up, still stiff or with your technique not fully dialed in. It’s not catastrophic, but it makes things harder than they need to be. If you had taken four warm-up sets instead of just two, your workout could have gone much smoother.

On the flip side, you don’t want to overdo the warm-ups. In the worst case, you might tire yourself out with unnecessary sets, leaving you with less energy for your work sets. Even if you don’t get fatigued, you could end up spending more time in the gym than you’d like. It’s better to take just the right amount of warm-up sets to get the job done, then focus on your work sets and move on with your day.