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I wouldn't entirely agree. If you aren't lifting any relatively heavy, extra weights, e.g. running or something, warming up isn't as important. However, when lifting relatively heavy weights, I think warming up is pretty important.

Warming up has the benefit of lubing up your joints. I think we've all had the instance where our body are relatively stiff and if we do, say, a push up, our joints pop or make cracking sounds. I remember squatting once when I didn't fully warm up. My knee wanted to pop during the squat and it felt extremely uncomfortable trying to exert force on that leg. When there isn't any extra weight, merely extending your leg with a pop wouldn't bother anybody, but exerting a lot of force and doing so slowly sure wasn't a pleasant experience. What are the chances of serious injury? I don't know, but it hurt enough for me to not want to find out.

Another thing warming up helps with is to acclimate you to your working set weight. I know the first set of my bench press usually ends in a grinder and is the roughest out of all my sets. I'm not sure if it's just my mind acclimating to the weight or a physiological thing like more blood getting pumped to my muscles. Either way, I'm fairly certain (but do not have any sources) injury rates would be increased if you tried to deadlift your max without properly warming up.

I think you missed that stated I do a few warmup sets for all of my main lifts and that I lift heavy (5 rep max, sometimes 3rm and 1rm depending on lift and day). However, I believe most people do too many warmup sets which limits their working set and slows progress and gains. Doing 3-4 working sets in reasonable increments is just fine. I know people that do 20 total sets per "body part", only 3-5 of them that are working sets (because that's what the bodybuilding magazine reported <today's Mr. Universe candidate) said they lift).

The running thing seems less likely to be true though. I wouldn't put my bed in a field, sleep 8 hours, hop out and go full out on a sprint, but I'm not going to do 20 minutes of stretching or ride a bike before doing a few sets of sprints.

Long distance warm ups seem even less likely to be needed than Sprints.

And, for what it's worth, I've done "max effort" deadlifts without warming up once or twice. Mostly to show off, but I had lifted those weights before (that day in one case, a couple days back in the other), and didn't have any issues. I could have been hurt, I guess, so my 'anecdata' is no evidence, but even so, not warming up isn't a guarantee of injury either.

I have a feeling that your true 1rm is higher than you think it is if you can pull it off without acclimating to that weight.

I never said you will for sure get injured, merely the chances increase. And I agree that some people have warm ups that are too intense.

Upvoted for the evolutionary perspective. One thing to add though: ancient humans were undoubtedly in better overall fitness than the average modern person, so maybe that would lead to it being unlikely that they would suffer sprinting-related injuries in general -- in other words they were more "warmed up" at any given time than the modern human.

> ancient humans were undoubtedly in better overall fitness than the average modern person

Is this true? I mean we have different nutrition now. Ancient humans could have had problems putting on muscle mass and fat. Maybe they exercised more, maybe not. When I watch documentaries with hunter/gatherers they sit around quite a bit.

Count me in the category that would definitely get weeded out for not having a warmup time before fleeing from the bear.

Sample size of one: I just started to "get fit" after 10 years of sitting on my ass. I'm running every morning when I wake up (I always wake up about 5am, but usually I just go back to sleep until the 7am alarm). So I open eyes, put on clothes, and hit the road within 5 minutes of waking up. I have to start at a slow jog, and I'm not able to go much faster than a speedy walk for about 10 minutes before I can actually jog. So for 10 minutes I'm pacing for a 15 minute mile. I can literally feel the moment at which I can comfortably jog, and then I'm able to do 10 minute miles for the duration of the run.

When I started this at the beginning of April, I could only do 30 minutes at a time and was hitting about 2.25 miles. This week I ran 5.5 miles in 60 minutes, still have to take my slow start.

> Sample size of one: I just started to "get fit" after 10 years of sitting on my ass.

As a contrast, I've been fit all my life (two sport college athlete, resting heart rate in the 30s) and I absolutely cannot imagine sprinting without a warmup.

GP, how fast are you? 100m time? I have never, ever seen a coach or trainer recommend anything other than a long slow warmup. As someone who has a chronic hamstring injury, warmup is crucial to any exercise that I do.

Interesting.. I feel like I've definitely injured myself from not warming up enough. I actually don't even see how you can sprint at 100% when you are cold.

That's not to say I don't believe but that I wonder if there is something more nuanced which explains the differences in our experiences.

If you don't mind me asking, what kinds of sprinting do you do and how fast/fit/flexible are you?

Your evolutionary point makes sense but for example, my cats do stretch whenever they wake up. I imagine it's not necessary for them to stretch before moving but by stretching every time they remain very flexible. Kids for example don't really need to warm up and seem to have no trouble running right away, but they also are way more flexible than adults typically are so I wonder if that has something to do with it..

>>And to add to this, it doesn't even make sense from an evolutionary standpoint.

You aren't thinking it through. Humans evolved to be long distance runners, not sprinters. Early hunters were all about patiently chasing prey at a very moderate speed over miles and miles until the prey literally collapsed out of exhaustion.

In stark contrast, you have felines such as lions, which are all about short bursts of incredible speed and agility. Their entire bodies are designed for quick acceleration to very high speeds, but if they couldn't catch their prey during that short interval they would be screwed.

Edit: your scenario of "a predator attacking a camp of humans" is not realistic. Most predators are afraid of fire, and even fewer would attack groups of other predators (which humans are).

Also upvoted for the involuntary visual of giant cave bear rampaging through paleolithic camp while people get cramps and groin pulls from running away without stretching first. lol.

if warming up is just a myth, i dare you to deep-squat two plates without any warmup or mobility exercises. even better, try it after a day at the office sitting for 8 hours. i'll have the wheelchair ready to wheel you out when you slip a disc.