Is it cheating to skip warm up sets before testing for mastery?

Well, not completely skipping it but performing the warm up set(s) after the 5 mastery sets. For example, I will try for mastery of FL/PE3 next week and I would like to do it before my 60 reps of bHBR. I would then perform the rocks as a "cool down" after I hopefully pass the 5 sets.

What if I fail then on the cool down, would that mean no mastery after all?

In general, you should be passing mastery under the conditions you normally work out. If you can only pass under special circumstances, that's not really mastery.

On the other hand, if your warmup has a significant detrimental effect on your workout, you're probably doing too much. Don't be a warmup hero. 60 reps of bHBR is a lot of warmup if you're still on PE3. I'd do something more like 25s bHBH and 15r bHBR for your warmup. 

To build on Josh's post... I think provided your warm-up is not too much, mastery with warm-up should only take an extra week or two to manage.

I like to do an good warm up, but I don't double up on elements. I do some jumping jack variations to get the blood flowing, a single set of 20-25 hinge rows, and 30-40 incline push ups. Then I do my 80 or so reps of various wrist push ups and a 30 second false grip hang. That get's me nice and loose, but my core is still fresh to go straight into my FL work. By the time I get around to doing rows and HBP, I'm recovered from the earlier sets and good to go.

 I often do my warm-up after my workout.    Mostly, it's a time consideration and I just want to make sure I get the main workout done.

I thought the point of a warm up is to get your body up to working temperature so you will perform _better_. At least I perform better after a warm up than without, and I tend to be extra careful to do one if I know I have a challenging workout coming up, and I often skip it if I don't feel too worried about the work-out and I need to save time.

A warm up after the workout isn't a warm up. Warm up is to prepare your body for the workout you are about to do, with out in anyway detracting from it.

My warm ups are similar to what Colin describes.

Doing sets after the main workout after is a cool down or assistance work, nothing wrong with it, but don't confuse the two.

Are you sure your not doing too much for your warm up? When I do mine I feel like I can do more and I have more energy, without a warm up I couldn't pass any of the masteries.

Richard (and others), I'm sorry for derailing the thread.  Obviously a warm-up comes before the workout.  I just meant that if  doing a warm-up means working extensively on previous PEs, well then, I'm doing my warm-up after my workout.

Thanks for the input everyone!

It does seem like I might be doing too much for my warm up considering my level, i.e., fresh into GST.

I felt it last week on my 4th set of sHBH, probably because of all the rocks before. It does make sense what Joshua said, and I will dial down the intensity so that I'm good to go for my main work. 

Then I can add a bit more maintenance work also after my whole workout is done for the day. That sounds like a good plan.

I should probably go down on the reps of incline pushups as well (was doing 15), as I've been having problems to increase my reps on pushups.

And Jennifer, maybe you should also try some lighter warm up before your workout and then do some more afterwards if time allows. I will put that in practice this week

How important is the warmup? Going through f1and h1 without warmups sometimes takes me nearly an hour and I don't really have time to do more than that.

The Hansenator said:

How important is the warmup? Going through f1and h1 without warmups sometimes takes me nearly an hour and I don't really have time to do more than that.

I think for this kind of exercise it's pretty important.

If I go for a run I don't need to warm up first, I just go.

If I'm going to do heavy jefferson curls to the very end of my ROM and beyond, I think a warm up is a good idea. Even 5 minutes is good.

I like doing a good warmup, both to keep mastery of the previous difficult Pe's, and to increase hypertrophy by ensuring that the workouts are of a significant volume. I suspect that we'll need all the hypertrophy we can get, to be able to successfully tackle the Pe's in F3 and F4.

If you need to warmup for an exercise that means you haven't mastered it.

You don't need to do 60 reps of bent hollow rocks, if you're testing mastery for straddle hollow hold for 5x60s, then you should definitely be able to do 5x60r straddle hollow hold.

All I would do is a set of catcows and a set of tables

I try to keep workouts to about an hour or less and I tend to be pretty pooped by the end even without warmups. I'm probably missing out by not warming up more but time and energy are limited.

Ravn said:

I like doing a good warmup, both to keep mastery of the previous difficult Pe's, and to increase hypertrophy by ensuring that the workouts are of a significant volume. I suspect that we'll need all the hypertrophy we can get, to be able to successfully tackle the Pe's in F3 and F4.

could you please expand? specifically, how to achieve hypertrophy with previous pe's

Well, I just mean that doing e.g. 15-20 pushups, then 10-13 PPP's, then the worksets is going to give an overall increase in volume which will effect hypertrophy better than a very short warmup followed by worksets of e.g. 4x3 reps. For many exercises we are only hitting 5x5 in mastery week, but mostly the rep count is quite low, so I think we should strive to keep the volume up. For some of the truly hard exercises later in foundation, a low rep count should be enough to give hypertrophy, but for, say, standard pb dips a mid cycle rep scheme of 3x2 or 4x3 is not really enough to cause serious hypertrophy - everything is relative, however, so if you're a true beginner, it WILL obviously cause your muscles to grow.

Anyway, to each his own, but it's been working very well for me, although it does make the workout a bit longer.

I never spend longer than 30 seconds warming up for any element. I generally do some light dynamic stretching and maybe some static contractions to get the blood going.

I might start doing it when I get to more advanced elements that are more about max contraction and less about stamina/endurance.

Maybe on some of the advanced elements a special warm up might be needed,  but I find if I do the exercises in the order Coach put them then I don't need a warm up on any of the exercises...I just do them.

I think how we should warm up for specific elements is described clearly enough. No need IMO to do incline pushups if you are working on pushups, it's the same movement essentially. Use warm-up sets to work on movements you're no longer doing in your work sets.

Lol wish I hadn't tortured myself getting through HBP:PE1 21r/15r before doing 5x15r HBP:PE2!

It's so hot here my warm up is the 10 minute walk to the gym.....

I like the SLS / PE iMs for warmup very much. Never start a workout without them.

Hmms said:

If you need to warmup for an exercise that means you haven't mastered it.

"You there, boy!" said the coach to Chen Yibing. "I wanna see some kips to v cross right now, no warm up!"

Micawberian said:

"You there, boy!" said the coach to Chen Yibing. "I wanna see some kips to v cross right now, no warm up!"

A member here was at the Italian national gymnastics convention. He said the guys there were warming up with the inverted cross and maltese on rings...