This video was filmed on my very first day in the gym with @tompurvisptrts at the tail end of May. He’d never met me before, and we were on the back of an impromptu 1-hr whiteboard lecture 📝 on what most of the world calls “warming up” and at RTS we generally refer to as “exercise preparation”.
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A lot of our later conversations were much more technical 🤓 but I thought this was a really accessible way to introduce Tom to many of you who won’t be aware of the man who is behind so much of the accurate information you’ve learnt over the years.
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Tom’s a big proponent of his own RTS motto of “Think science, speak client” and meeting the person you’re talking to “where they’re at” 🗣 You’ll note how casual his terminology was here because he wasn’t sure yet what I was comfortable with. A month later it would probably sound like French to most of the general population 😂
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Anyway, here he’s putting in quite simple layman’s terms what is happening during a warm-up set ⚡️ He’s just getting his muscles “used to” contracting, because 5 minutes ago they were doing nothing 😴
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Think of those sets in terms of their purpose. They’re to prepare your joints for the range they’re going to have to explore, your muscles to contract and the force they and their connective tissue are about to produce and translate respectively, and your neural system to make all of this happen with maximal effort 💯 Yes, the process will encourage increased blood flow so don’t worry about that🫀
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Lastly, they represent your opportunity to focus on what feels good today and what doesn’t 🤔 and what cues you’re going to focus on delivering in your set this session (based on either an intention bias or something in particular you’re working on or experimenting with) without the distraction of managing and controlling heavy load 🥵
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If you start thinking about your “non-working” sets in this manner, you might just find you stop wasting too much energy “getting warm” 🤒🤦🏻♂️ and instead spend it improving the readiness of your mind 🧠 muscles 💪🏽 and joints 🦾 to execute the sets ahead of you.
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Bonne courage, mes amis préparés. Go forth and contract.
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