Not for every exercise. In RIGOR only loaded exercises get warm-up sets: a barbell compound gets the empty bar then at most four climbing sets, any other compound at most three, an isolation exercise at most one. An exercise whose movement or muscle is already warm from earlier in the session gets fewer or none.
Do you need warm-up sets for every exercise?
No. RIGOR gives warm-up sets to loaded exercises only, and it trims or skips them for an exercise whose movement or muscle an earlier exercise has already trained. RIGOR is the app behind this guide, and this page sets out its rule.
Warm-up sets are on by default and can be turned off in Profile › Workout settings. They are worked out from the first working set's target weight, so an exercise with no known weight gets none. The table gives the rule for each kind of exercise.
| Kind of exercise | Warm-up sets | Skipped when |
|---|---|---|
| Barbell compound: squat, bench press, deadlift, barbell row | Empty bar × 10, then 40% × 5, 60% × 5, 80% × 3 | An earlier exercise had the same movement: only 80% × 3 stays |
| Other loaded compound: dumbbell bench press, leg press, lat pulldown | 40% × 5, 60% × 5, 80% × 3 | An earlier exercise had the same movement: none |
| Weighted pull-up or dip | One set at bodyweight × 5 | An earlier exercise had the same movement: none |
| Isolation: curl, lateral raise, leg curl | One set, 60% × 8 | An earlier exercise trained one of its main muscles: none |
| Bodyweight, assisted or timed | None | Never has any |
A heavy barbell lift adds one more set. When the top of its rep range is 6 or fewer and the working weight is 100 kg or 225 lb and up, a single at 90% follows the 80% set. The warm-up calculator works out the whole barbell ramp for any weight.
How many warm-up sets does a barbell lift get?
Up to five, the empty bar included. The bar is the first set, then 40%, 60% and 80% of the working weight, then the 90% single if the lift is heavy and low in reps. A light weight gets fewer, because a step that lands on the bar or on an earlier step is dropped. Whether the bar counts as weight is a separate question from whether it gets a set.
The same squat at 60 kg gets four sets, 20 × 10, 25 × 5, 35 × 5 and 47.5 × 3. At 30 kg it gets two, 20 × 10 and 25 × 3. These are the calculator's own cases.
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When does a lift skip its warm-up sets?
A compound skips its ramp only when an earlier exercise in the session trained the same movement pattern with working sets. A barbell compound whose ramp is skipped keeps one set, 80% × 3, if that weight is above the bar and below the working weight. An isolation exercise skips when an earlier exercise trained one of its primary muscles. Weighted pull-ups and dips skip like any compound.
The patterns are squat, hinge, lunge, a horizontal and a vertical push, a horizontal and a vertical pull, carry, core and isolation. Two things follow from keying the rule that way. A deadlift after squats still gets its ramp, because a hinge is not a squat. And a dumbbell shoulder press after a bench press still gets its ramp: in RIGOR's catalogue the press is a vertical push and the bench press a horizontal one.
| Exercise | Warm-up sets | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Barbell Back Squat, 100 kg | 20 × 10, 40 × 5, 60 × 5, 80 × 3, 90 × 1 | First squat of the session |
| Leg Press | None | The squat pattern is already trained |
| Barbell Romanian Deadlift, 80 kg | 20 × 10, 32.5 × 5, 47.5 × 5, 65 × 3 | A hinge, not trained yet |
| Leg Curl | None | Hamstrings are a primary muscle of the deadlift |
That is nine warm-up sets across four exercises, and two of the four get none. Warm-up sets need less rest than working sets: the times in the guide to rest between sets are for working sets.
What warm-up sets do isolation exercises get?
One set at 60% for 8 reps, or none. A small isolation lift such as a curl, a lateral raise or a leg curl gets that one set only if no earlier exercise has trained one of its primary muscles. The earlier exercise can be a compound: the leg curl above gets none after the deadlift.
It follows the muscle, not the pattern, so a curl after rows and pulldowns still gets its set. In RIGOR's catalogue the lat pulldown lists the lats, and the barbell row the lats and rhomboids, as primary muscles, not the biceps. A barbell curl is an isolation exercise too, so it gets the one set and not the empty-bar ramp.
What do studies say about warm-up sets?
A 2020 trial had 40 resistance-trained men aged 19 to 30 do 3 × 6 at 80% of their maximal dynamic strength in the squat and the bench press, after one of three warm-ups on separate days: 2 × 6 at 40% and 80% of that load, 6 × 80%, or 6 × 40%. In the squat, mean propulsive velocity was higher after 6 × 80% than after 6 × 40% in the second set (0.69 against 0.67 m/s) and the third (0.68 against 0.66 m/s). In the bench press, the time to peak velocity was lower in the first two sets, and total work higher, after the 40%-then-80% warm-up than after 6 × 40%. The authors conclude that warming up with few repetitions and low loads is not enough to optimize squat and bench press performance.
A 2021 narrative review of time-efficient training advises restricting the warm-up to exercise-specific warm-ups. A 2010 systematic review and meta-analysis of 32 studies on warming up in physical activities in general found that warm-up improved performance in 79% of the criteria examined, and that there was little evidence it was detrimental; it was not limited to lifting, and its authors say more randomized controlled trials are needed. None of the three abstracts mentions skipping a warm-up after an earlier exercise for the same movement, so these papers do not settle that part of the rule.
When does this not apply?
Do written programs list warm-up sets?
Not the ones on this site. The 3 day dumbbell program lists working sets only, so the warm-up sets come on top of what it prints, and RIGOR adds them by the table above.
RIGOR lists the warm-up sets for you
Questions
Are warm-up sets worth it?
The evidence is thin. In a 2020 trial of 40 resistance-trained men, warm-ups that included a set at 80% of the training load did better than 6 reps at 40% on some measures in the squat and bench press. A 2021 review advises exercise-specific warm-ups. The 2020 trial's warm-ups were not RIGOR's ramp.
Do warm-up sets change for muscle growth or for strength?
Not in RIGOR. Its warm-up rule has no setting for the goal. The only thing about reps it reads is the top of the rep range: a barbell compound adds a single at 90% when that top is 6 or fewer and the weight is 100 kg or 225 lb and up.
What warm-up sets does a dumbbell bench press get?
If no earlier exercise in the session trained the same movement, a dumbbell bench press gets 40% × 5, 60% × 5 and 80% × 3 of its first working weight, rounded to weights your gym can make. It gets no empty-bar set, since it is not a barbell lift, and none after a barbell bench press.
Do warm-up sets count as working sets?
No. RIGOR shows them apart from the working sets, and they never count toward volume, records or progress.
Can I turn warm-up sets off in RIGOR?
Yes. They are on by default, and you can turn them off in Profile › Workout settings.
