How the week is built
Warm-up sets
Updated 6 August 2026
Warm-up sets, sometimes called ramp sets, are lighter sets of the exact lift you are about to do, climbing toward your working weight. Two or three sets of decreasing reps at increasing load.
They are not the same as a general warm-up. Five minutes on a bike raises your temperature. Only a ramp set prepares this movement at this load.
What a ramp set is for
It does three jobs at once, and each one matters.
- Rehearsal. You practise the groove at a weight where a mistake is cheap.
- Preparation. The specific joints and tissues involved get loaded gradually rather than all at once.
- Information. You find out what today feels like before you are under your working weight, which is when you would rather know.
What a good ramp looks like
Reps come down as load goes up, so the ramp never leaves fatigue behind for the working sets. Heading for 80kg, a reasonable ramp is 8 reps at around 45kg, 5 at around 60kg, and 3 at around 65kg.
The number of ramps scales with the load and the rep scheme, not with a fixed rule. Light work needs one or none. Heavy work, and especially a near maximal set of 3 to 5 reps, always earns two or three regardless of the absolute number on the bar.
When you can skip them
Below roughly 20kg a ramp is mostly theatre. The first working set is the warm-up, and the minute a ramp costs comes straight out of a session you only have 45 of.
Skip them on isolation work too, generally. A lateral raise does not need a ramp. And you do not need to ramp every exercise in a session: once your first pressing movement is warm, the second one usually needs one ramp at most.
In your plan
How Ionik Coach uses warm-up sets
Ionik Coach works out the ramp for you and shows it as actual rows in your workout, with the weight and reps filled in, rather than leaving it as advice.
The number of ramps is decided from your working load relative to you, your rep scheme, and your age, and each ramp is counted against your session time budget. A ramp is a real set with a real rest before it, so pretending it is free is how a 45 minute session quietly becomes an hour.
Common questions
Do warm-up sets count toward my training volume?
No. Only hard working sets count. Ramp sets are deliberately easy, which is the whole point of them.
Do I need to warm up every exercise?
Not every one. The first heavy exercise for a body area deserves a proper ramp, and later exercises using the same joints usually need one set or none.
Is a general warm-up still worth doing?
Yes, briefly. A few minutes of easy movement raises body temperature and helps you loosen up. It just does not replace preparing the specific lift at the specific load.
Related terms
- Compound and isolation exercises Compound lifts move several joints at once and build the session. Isolation lifts move one joint and fill the gaps.
- Movement patterns The six or seven basic ways a human body moves under load. Plans are built from patterns first and exercises second.
- One rep max (1RM) The heaviest weight you could lift once. Almost always estimated from a set you already did rather than actually tested.
- Training volume How much work you do for a muscle, counted as the number of hard working sets you complete for it in a week.