The most moaning and groaning that happens in the gym usually isn’t during the workout. It’s during the warm-up.
You’re sore from the day before. You just woke up. Your caffeine hasn’t kicked in yet. You feel stiff. You’re already dreading the workout. The bike has you breathing harder than you think it should. Your legs feel heavy. Your shoulders don’t want to move.
Wah, wah, wah.
At this point, I’ve become tone-deaf to these complaints in the same way a parent eventually stops hearing, “Are we there yet?” from the back seat on a road trip.
I hear you. I understand. I also don’t care.
Because as much as the warm-up can suck, especially at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, it matters.
Even if you don’t think you need it. Even if you feel like you can walk in, grab a barbell, and get right to work. Even if you normally “mail it in” and save your effort for the workout.
When you do that, you aren’t saving energy. You’re giving away better movement, better performance, more productive training, and potentially faster progress.
If you don’t want me to invalidate your excuses for why you don’t try during the warm-up, stop reading right here.
Still here? Good.
Your Body Is Not Ready Just Because Class Started
When your muscles and connective tissues are cold, they are generally stiffer and less compliant. Blood flow is lower, nerve signals travel more slowly, and producing fast, powerful contractions is harder.
As you move, your body temperature rises, and blood vessels supplying the working muscles widen. More oxygen-rich blood reaches those tissues. Muscle and connective tissue become more pliable, and your muscles can contract and relax more efficiently.
That matters whether the day calls for a heavy back squat, a max-effort deadlift, running, box jumps, Olympic weightlifting, or 100 kettlebell swings.
Research on warm-ups has consistently found performance benefits. One systematic review found that an adequate warm-up improved performance in 79% of the measures researchers examined. More recent research also supports that increasing muscle temperature improves rapid force development and power, the qualities you need when moving quickly or explosively.
This is also why it usually takes longer to feel ready in January than it does in July. You’re starting from a different temperature, and your body needs more time and movement to get where it needs to be.
Your Joints Need Movement Too
Your knees, hips, shoulders, and other synovial joints contain fluid that helps lubricate the surfaces inside the joint.
When that fluid is colder, it is more viscous, basically thicker and more resistant to movement. As temperature rises, its viscosity decreases, helping the joint move with less resistance. At the same time, the muscles and connective tissues surrounding the joint become more pliable and less guarded.
That first squat may feel stiff and ugly. The tenth one usually feels better. That isn’t an accident.
The warm-up is giving your joints time to move, your available range of motion time to improve, and your body time to become comfortable in the positions the workout will demand.
This doesn’t mean a warm-up makes you injury-proof. Nothing does. But going from sitting in your car to moving fast, lifting heavy, or forcing yourself into a demanding position without preparation is an unnecessary gamble.
Getting Out of Breath Is Part of the Point
Another popular warm-up complaint is, “Why am I already so out of breath?”
Because your heart, lungs, and muscles are waking up too.
The warm-up gradually increases your heart rate, breathing rate, blood flow, and oxygen delivery. Prior exercise can also help your oxygen-use system respond more quickly when the harder work begins. In simple terms, you’re getting your aerobic engine running before asking it to go full throttle.
If you completely avoid raising your heart rate during the warm-up, the workout doesn’t become easier. You simply force your body to make that transition during round one.
Now the clock is running, everyone else is moving, and you’re wondering why the first few minutes feel terrible.
Because you chose to use the workout as your warm-up.
Your Nervous System Needs Reps Before the Reps Count
The warm-up isn’t only about making your muscles feel warmer. It is also practice for your brain and nervous system.
Every squat, hinge, kip, jump, press, or Bergner warm-up gives your brain information about where your body is and what it needs to do next. This is proprioception, your awareness of your body’s position and movement.
As you rehearse a pattern, nerve signals speed up, muscle activation improves, and your body becomes better at recruiting the right muscles in the right sequence. Balance, timing, coordination, and control sharpen.
That is why we don’t go from an empty bar directly to a heavy clean. It is why we build the movement through positions, drills, and progressively heavier sets. Your muscles may be strong enough to move the weight, but your nervous system still needs time to organize the movement.
Mindless reps don’t accomplish the same thing. If you rush, cut the range of motion, ignore the intended positions, or casually flop through every drill, you’re rehearsing exactly that: rushed, shortened, sloppy movement.
Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent.
Mailing It In Costs You More Than You Think
Let’s say the workout is a 12-minute AMRAP and you take the first three minutes to finally feel loose, coordinated, and ready to push.
You didn’t save yourself during the warm-up. You wasted 25% of the workout getting ready to do the workout.
The same thing happens in strength work. If you aren’t prepared to move well, your early sets feel heavier than they should, your positions are worse, and you may never reach the quality or intensity the session was designed to produce.
One lazy warm-up probably won’t erase all your progress. But repeated over months and years, those missed opportunities add up. Better training comes from consistently getting more value out of the work already programmed, not always from adding more work.
Soreness Is a Reason to Warm Up, Not an Excuse to Skip It
There is a difference between soreness, stiffness, and actual pain.
If something hurts, feels unstable, or changes the way you move, tell your coach. We can adjust the movement, load, range of motion, or plan.
But if you’re simply sore from previous training, standing around usually won’t make you feel better. Appropriate movement increases circulation, raises tissue temperature, and lets you assess how your body responds before the intensity goes up.
The warm-up is not a test you need to win. You don’t need to sprint every bike interval or turn every drill into a competition. Taking it seriously means moving with purpose and reaching the intended level of readiness, not redlining before the workout starts.
What Taking the Warm-Up Seriously Looks Like
- Show up on time so you aren’t rushing through the most important preparation.
- Move with intention instead of merely counting reps.
- Use the range of motion you safely have and work toward the positions the day requires.
- Gradually increase your speed, load, and intensity.
- Pay attention to what feels stiff, limited, painful, or uncoordinated.
- Listen when a coach explains why a drill is included.
- Choose a scale that prepares you for the workout you are actually going to perform.
- Finish the warm-up feeling ready, not exhausted, but no longer asleep.
The Warm-Up Is Part of the Workout
The warm-up isn’t filler while we wait for everyone to arrive. It isn’t punishment before the fun part, and it isn’t a collection of random movements a coach wrote down to kill ten minutes.
It is the first part of the training session.
It prepares your muscles and joints. It ramps up your heart and lungs. It wakes up your nervous system. It gives you time to practice the movements, find your positions, and determine what your body is capable of that day.
So yes, you may be sore. You may be tired. You may feel stiff. You may be breathing hard sooner than you would like.
You’re allowed to complain a little. We’ve all done it.
But keep moving.
Take the warm-up seriously, not because the coach wants prettier air squats, but because the quality of the work you do afterward depends on it.
Do it like it matters.
Because it does.
Nick Carignan
CrossFit 8 Mile
