skipping warm-up is costing you more than you think

Took me an embarrassingly long time to actually take warm-ups seriously. I used to walk in, slap some weight on the bar and just go. Felt fine. Until it didn't. Pulled something in my hip at a meet two years ago and my physio basically looked me dead in the eyes and said you do know a warm-up isn't optional, right. Cheers for that. Now I do a proper 15-20 mins before I even think about touching a working set. Honestly the difference in how my lifts feel is — I can't explain it. Everything moves better. Bar path is cleaner. I'm not fighting my own body for the first three sets. For me it's: - light cardio to get blood moving, like 5 mins on the bike, nothing mad - hip circles, thoracic rotations, whatever the movement pattern of the day needs - then warm-up sets all the way up, no ego jumps The warm-up sets thing especially. I see people going from the bar straight to near max and I just — yeah. Your nervous system needs to actually rehearse the movement under load, gradually. That's not wasted energy, that's the session starting properly. Mind you I still have days where I'm running late and I cut it short. And those sessions usually feel like rubbish. Every time. You'd think I'd learn.