Warm-Up Sets Calculator
Enter the weight of your first working set and your goal. This lays out the warm-up ladder Sterka uses for a lifting session — the loads, the reps, and the rest between each rung — scaled to the number you're building to.
| Set | Load | Reps | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · 50% | 50.0 kg | 5 | 0:45 |
| 2 · 60% | 60.0 kg | 5 | 1:00 |
| 3 · 75% | 75.0 kg | 3 | 1:15 |
| 4 · 85% | 85.0 kg | 2 | 2:00 |
| 5 · 92% | 92.5 kg | 1 | 2:30 |
| Work · 100% | 100.0 kg | — | — |
Loads round to the nearest 2.5 kg. Rest climbs as the warm-ups get heavier — the last gap is your setup before the first work set.
How the ladder is computed
Each rung is a fixed percentage of your first working weight. The reps and rest come from a per-goal schedule, not a formula. For a 100 kg work set on Get Stronger, the top warm-up rung is:
Build Muscle runs a shorter ladder — 50%, 70%, 85% for eight, five, and three reps — because the working sets themselves start lighter. Get Stronger adds two heavier, lower-rep rungs to groove the pattern under near- maximal load.
Why the ladder changes with the load
A warm-up has one job: get you ready for the work set without spending the energy the work set needs. Too few rungs and your first hard set is your first heavy set — cold, and a rep or two short of what you had. Too many and you arrive at the bar already tired, warm-ups eating into the sets that actually drive progress. The right number of rungs sits between those, and it moves with how heavy you're going.
Sterka reads that from the working set's intensity relative to your one-rep max. Below 40%, the load is light enough that no warm-up set is needed — the first work sets are the warm-up. Between 40% and 65%, two rungs bring you up. At 65% and above, a third rung is added, because the jump to a genuinely heavy work set is one your joints and nervous system should meet in stages. For near-maximal strength work the ladder runs longer still — up to the five rungs the Get Stronger table above lays out — each a smaller step as the bar gets heavy.
Goal shapes it too. On Get Stronger, the working sets live near your top end, so the ladder climbs higher and thinner — 92% for a single before you touch the work weight — to rehearse the movement heavy without banking fatigue. On Build Muscle, the work sits in a rep range further from failure, so a lighter three-rung ramp is enough. Rest stretches as the rungs get heavy: a few seconds after the light ones, over two minutes before the near-maximal single.
The ladder here is scaled to one number. In a session, how many rungs fire depends on the lift, your history on it, and where the work set lands against your max — which is the part a calculator can show but only a program can decide.
Warm-ups are one small piece of what Sterka prescribes. It programs the working sets, the rest, and the progression too.
Join the WaitlistThis is the engine's warm-up ladder scaled to one number, not a plan built for you. How many rungs actually fire depends on the lift and your history. Consult a clinician before starting a new program.