So you want to get bigger, you want to get stronger,
and you want to get fit. Well, there's a way to do all three, and that way is Wenning warmups. With Wenning warmups, there
is a long history behind this. 2012, I hit my first 600 pound
bench in a bench only meet. Totally ecstatic I had
reached that pinnacle. Only, I think at that time,
30 guys had ever done it in any weight class and
only maybe half of them had done it at a full meet. So, once I did that 600 pound bench, my eyes were set on breaking
the world record total in just knee sleeves and a belt. But I had to learn how to get there, so the first meet that I did, I went and squatted close to 800 pounds and then my bench had fallen to 573 from where it was at 600. I went how with a whole new battle plan, figuring out how did
my bench fall 30 pounds even though I felt stronger
and what I found was is that I wasn't fit enough to hit a 600 pound bench after a big squat. Also, what I also found was is that a lot of time, when I work with my tactical division athletes, we don't get more than 45 to 60 minutes with these guys at a time. What does that mean? That means the density of our workout has to be very, very
high and we have to get a lot of things accomplished
in a short period of time because we don't have time
to make the workouts extended because most of these guys
are on-duty at that time. So, what I found out was is that if I did some pre-fatiguing and
pre-potentiating type movements before we would actually do the big stuff, we were not only able to
get a little more fit, put on a little more functional muscle, but we were actually able
to help the core lifts and push the workout along much faster. With the Wenning warmup, what does it do? Well one, it increases fitness level and fitness level can
dictate strength potential, which is called general
physical preparedness. So, what I find with
most lifters in general is that they're not in shape enough to show their true
nature of their strength. So, what you have to
realize is that maybe, just maybe, it's not that
you're not strong enough to see your potential in your lifts. You may not be fit enough. B, the next thing is
potentiate weak muscle groups. So, if you select the right exercises to pre-fatigue before you
actually do your core movements, it's going to actually enhance the technical ability of your core lift. I.e., if your triceps are
lagging, you need to do a hundred tricep pushdowns
before you bench press. Over time, those triceps are actually not going to be the weak point anymore. And C, it starts the balance process from anterior to posterior, which increases safety and longevity. What does that mean? That means that the warmup's, 60-something percent of
the warmup that we designed is designed to maintain
posture and balance the body. So, if we're going to do heavy squats, we always warmup hamstrings. It's not that the hamstrings
are not engaged when you squat, it's just that they're not
the dominant muscle group. The quadricep tries to be
the dominant muscle group. But by enforcing the hamstring
to play a larger part and the glutes to play a larger part, you have less knee pain. So, most of you guys are asking, "Well, Matt, I get a lot of
knee pain when I squat.". I can almost guarantee you
you're not using enough glutes and you're not using enough
hamstrings to do that. But what if, just what
if, you take those areas and warm them up before you squat? I have found with all of the populations that I have trained, that not only enhances
technique, it reduces pain. Now, the same thing holds
true with the upper body. The upper body tends to, when you don't have a lot of coaching, the bench press tends to
be, and the military press tends to be very shoulder dominant. And the reason for that
is we do a lot of things with our shoulders on a day-to-day basis. But we don't do a lot of pushing down with the tricep on a day-to-day basis. By doing 100 or so of tricep pushdowns before any kind of military pressing or bench pressing is actually done, what you start to find
is it starts to reduce pain and pressure at the shoulder. The reason is is that you're slowly, neurologically turning on the tricep in order for that tricep to start playing a larger role in
the pressing movements and not let the shoulder do all the work, which is most common if
you walk into a normal gym. Let's see what this would look
like on an upper body workout so you can get an idea of
how we train here at the gym. So, the first thing we
need to understand is: What's the major weak points? Well, I haven't seen you. I haven't seen your training buddies and I don't know what you've been doing. But I can almost guarantee
that your lats and your triceps need more work if you want to bench. Now, we ask ourselves, "Why the lats?". You cannot stabilize or you cannot press what you cannot stabilize. What does that mean? Scapular stability. If your lats cannot, and
your shoulder blades cannot stabilize the types of weight
you're trying to press, your body will automatically turn off the front side and not let you press it. And if you keep overdoing
it and overdoing it, eventually, you get an injury. So, a lot of times, if you're
going to build a really fast car, you got to have big brakes first. You don't want a thousand horsepower motor with 200 horsepower brakes or you're going to end up
blowing yourself apart. Sometimes, your body is smarter than you. So, if you don't have
the stabilizer muscles on the back end, your body's
not going to be able to press. So, what does that mean? Your understanding and
your training volume needs to be pushed and directed towards the areas that
are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, and that's usually the opposite muscle. Triceps, why are triceps important? Most people in our high schools and our general fitness
magazines have been taught that the bench press is a pec exercise. In reality, it's actually an arm exercise and the pec turns into a
stabilizer at ultra heavy weights. So, what does that mean? That means that bench
pressing is an arm exercise and if you want a big bench, you got to have very, very big triceps. Now, what happens is
is that we don't become tricep-dominant benchers
overnight and by accident. The reason for that is is that our shoulders are heavily dominated and we do a lot of
things throughout the day with our small shoulder muscles. But at the end of the day,
the tricep is the big presser. So, what we need to do is tell the body to go to the triceps when it strains and go to the body when the tricep, when we need it to be fast and explosive. So, we have to do arm-dominant movements. So, how do we do this? Well, I'll show you. So, in the upper body, we're going to pick a lat exercise, one of them. We're going to do it four sets of 25. We're going to pick one
tricep exercise for a warmup. We're going to do four sets of 25. We're going to pick a pressing exercise that mimics similar to what
we're going to do that day. So, if we're going to do an incline, we're going to warmup incline. If we're going to do a decline,
we're going to warmup decline. If we're going to do some
kind of a flat bench, we're going to warmup flat. The point is is we're still going to do a warmup pressing movement that
we're going to do that day, but it's just in the exact
same angle that we're doing to get the motor patterns and
the potentiation straight. So, we'll pick one exercise of that, we'll do those four sets of 25. Now, you might be asking yourself, "Matt, I'm a power lifter
and all I care about "is being strong one time. "Why am I doing 25?". 25 reps keeps you humble by, meaning that if you can do something for
25, it can't be that heavy. So, remember, you're
warming up these muscles. You're not trying to kill them. So, with 25 reps being the parameter, I have found over the
last six to eight years of benching 600 pounds multiple times that 25 reps kept me from going too heavy. This needs to be like a
bodybuilder style pump feel and it needs to be
fatiguing because it's fast as far as how fast you go
through this, but it's not heavy. This is not done in a heavy sense in your workouts whatsoever. It is done to get you more in shape and get the muscles tuned
in and the spark plugs hot, so when you go to the bench press, your body already knows what to do. It's kind of like looking
at all the answers of a test before the test is given. So, we've selected our exercises and now, how fast do we get this done? Well, pretty simple question. We pick three exercises, each of those exercises
has to do four sets of 25, and we need to get it
done in 12 to 14 minutes. That doesn't mean that the exercise necessarily is done quickly. It means that there's no rest
in between those exercises. So, you do a press, then a pulldown, and then a pushdown in
no particular order. I personally would probably
start with lats first, then go to tris and
then go to the presses, but you can do it and mix
and match any way you want. But the point is is
that you want that done in 12 to 14 minutes because
that 12 to 14 minute window increases general physical preparedness, which means it puts you in amazing shape, burns off a ton of body fat, and gets you highly
conditioned year round. So, that way, this is how I had found the tactical military units
to actually get more fit without actually having
a fitness style workout. They were able to use a
strength training workout and still get more in shape. I just transferred it
over to power lifting and it made me hit world records. So, the point was is that it needs to be set up in order for you to be fit, not necessarily to work on being strong. You get strong on the
next exercises to come. So, now we've dove deep
into the Wenning warmup. We've shown you multiple exercises, we've shown you the setting, we've shown you the time parameters, and we've shown you
what they are used for. If you like this video,
go watch the other ones where we describe our training and check on WenningStrength.com
for equipment and manuals that go way deeper into
this stuff on the board.
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Been doing this. My main lifts feel much better.
Sure I may not be able to do as much weight, but I’m not competing. I’m just lifting to be strong and feel/look good.
This looks really solid any thoughts on lower body days? Lats, hamstrings and similar movement? That doesn't feel quite right to me
Similar to the things I do to warm up and prepare for squats and bench. Saves me hip pain and elbow pain.
Couple dumb questions...
So he says 4x25 with an exercise that mimics the position of the main lift. So if I'm doing OHP, is the only real option to do some standing dumbbell presses? Flat bench, do some flat dumbbell presses, etc right?
I can imagine some front squats or goblet squats are good for Squat days, but what about Deadlifts? Any recommendations there? I feel like you'd probably still want to mix in some lat warmups for Deadlifts as well, right? I sumo deadlift mostly.
I know Wenning follows a Conjugate style program, But any idea of how to use this if you do full body sessions?
Once you pick your 3 warmup movements, would you stick with them, or rotate them on a weekly basis?