Warm Up

[Mikael]

What exactly is the purpose of doing a warm up set? Is it to get warm in the muscles of is it to make the muscles used to/prepared to the training?

Someone talked about rinsing the hands in hot water, so I'm a little confused. Can that really be done instead of doing a warm up set?

[Scott Styles]

A proper warm up raises the temperature of the deep tissues of the hand and prepares them for training. I don't think just rinsing the hands in hot water will do this, but it could be a start. I'd be concerned about the water softening the skin though.

It's also a chance to check how the strong the hands are feeling. Any soreness? Are the knuckles popping a lot? Do any calluses feel like they are going to crack or rip?

Personally, I grip best when my hands are thoroughly warmed. This generally means I either need to do some sort of light activity (a short walk) or moderate strength training (some squats at 50%). If I wait until the afternoon or evening to train, I can get by with less of this. In any case, once my hands are warm, I still do at least 1 or 2 light sets on any exercise I am doing. For certain exercises like v-bar, I need quite a long warm up. It takes several sets for the skin on my hands to tighten to the point where I can handle my limit weights.

[dimmers]

If you mean warming up for grip training on hand grippers, then i think this is really important. As the previous post stated, it gives you a good indication of how your hand is feeling on the day, and prepares the hand for some hard grip work. I think if you look back at previous posts (or even in the FAQ section) you'll notice most people recommend a warmup session, even if it's just a few singles on an easy gripper.

You wouldn't go to the gym and try and set a PB squat without a warmup would you?

[Mikael]

I guess if you train by doing singles or negatives it's important to do warm up, but if you do sets of 5-10 reps you don't need to?

[mbcx6pmw]

If you need to go all out to get those 5-10 reps, I would still do 1-2 warm up sets.

[Scott Styles]

I do better on rep based sets with a good warm up. By late afternoon, my hands are warm enough that I'd do pretty well with a single warm up set, if my work sets were for reps.

[mt-tom]

I always do warmups. I get better max attempts when I do. Also, my hands just palin feel better when I do warmups.

Tom

[diesel]

soaking the hands/wrists in hot water helps, but be forewarned: your skin will tear a lot easier.

5 sets on the T works just as well.