Warm Up

MLA73

Any suggestions please for warm-ups and warm-downs when doing weights?

I tend to get a bit stiff the next day after exercise these days.

Is cardio eg treadmill the best way of loosening up before doing any weight training?

What about afterwards?

k.green

You can do a little cardio and also a few reps with lighter weights to help warm up the specific muscles you are using. After the workout static stretching (making sure you hold each stretch for a minimum of 30 seconds) and foam rolling should help.

southernsun

My routine recently has been:

30 seconds star jumps
60 seconds jogging on spot (raising knees as high as possible)
30 seconds burpees
30 seconds mountain climbers
20 press ups
20 body weight squats
20 kettlebell swings (light kettlebell)

Gets heart rate up and muscles warmed up and find I am less sore after than when I was previously doing static stretches.

dont_use_vistaprint

Make sure you warm up the muscles you are training, so if doing chest , shoulders or back rowing is a good warm up, bike/treadmill on leg day. Also do a warm up set of each exercise on a low weight, 10-15 reps. Don't overdo the warm ups though and avoid cardio for warm up if your strength training as it will zap your energy, cardio is best done on non training days. Stretch after and keep stretching daily , whenever possible.

Its normal to ache and be stiff after a good workout, especially at first, it means its working!

Last_Man_Standing

For weights I've found the most important warm-up is to start each exercise with lower weights and then work up to your training max for the day.

For example I would do the following:

- short fast treadmill run to increase my blood circulation and kick-start my workout (usually only 500 metres)
- some very light stretching (not a good idea to do serious stretching before a weights workout as serious stretching requires the muscles to recover)
Squats:
- 10 reps with just the 20kg (45lb) bar to get the correct form
- 10 reps with about 45kg to get used to the weight
- 6-8 reps with about 60kg
- 5-6 reps with 70kg

At this point I'm fully warmed-up but not exhausted, and ready for whatever heavy sets I want to do.

Bear in mind that for the squats I'd train at about 90kg (200lb). If your training weight is different (e.g. 40kg or 180kg) then obviously change the numbers to suit you.

Muscle soreness 2 days afterwards comes from doing exercise that your body isn't accustomed to. It's normal, and as long as you are warming up in a semi-sensible way then you're fine

To reduce muscle soreness over the next days my favourite method was to do some cardio work (football) the following day. Blood flow helps the muscles recover better.

Cold baths and other cold exposure can help too but don't do it on the same day as your training otherwise you lose most of the gains you wanted.

Sibz

What type of weights workout?

Joint mobility and some dynamic stretching is important.
You can work from top down through each joint, in each direction(range) it moves around 6 reps of each movement in each direction.
Follow up with some dynamic stretches for hamstrings/hip flexors/back etc.

The above is a popular olympic lifting warm-up layout