In other words, because you won’t be continuously exercising at zone 2 for the next half hour as you would if you were running, there’s a lesser demand on your body. Instead of working non-stop, lifting weights requires you to work hard for short, specific bursts, with plentiful rest in-between sets.
Don’t skip five to ten minutes of light jogging to get the heart pumping and the temperature raised, and do use some lighter dumbbells or resistance bands to open up the muscles you’re about to hit, but also don’t feel you need to be absolutely dripping with sweat by the time you’re ready to lift your first heavy weight.
Instead, Gibson says it’s much more important to focus on ‘practice sets’, i.e. running through your chest press using just the bar, or performing dumbbell rows with light weights, simply to get the relevant muscles used to these movement patterns.
“Rather than spending too much time warming-up as you might for running, this time should be reserved for activation work that aligns with the target of the session e.g., producing the same movement patterns/lifts with lesser resistance,” he says.
In short: don’t dive into the deep end, but don’t spend four sets building up to your heavy weight, either.
Should you do a cool down too?
You’ve dialed in your warm-up. Do you still need to stretch post-workout, or is it OK to hurry home to that protein shake?
“Whilst there is very good evidence supporting the implementation of a warm-up, the evidence for the use of a cool down is fairly limited,” says Gibson. In fact, actively cooling down isn’t just tiresome, it might put you at risk of injury. “There may be some benefits from some stretching or dynamic mobility work, but in general, adding additional activity after exercise could be seen as just adding more work that needs to be recovered from.”
Nail your warm-up, stay conscious of how your body is feeling throughout your workout, and you should be in the clear.
This story originally appeared in British GQ.