Managing Soreness With Better Warm-UPs

I went into the gym last week and I was crippling sore through my shoulders, rear delts, lats, and that streamed right down through my biceps, forearms, and into my hands. Now, keep in mind that I: 1) Have arthritis, especially in my hands and fingers 2) Had just squatted a PR 2 weeks in a row with a straight bar 3) Had popped a bone out of place in my palm (trapezoid bone) 4) Needed more sleep, food, massage But nonetheless I was in the gym and I was painfully sore and I didn't want to take a bottle of ibuprofen of completely give up on the day so I began thinking about some of the Old Dudes in the gym from a couple of decades ago and some of the stuff that I'd see them do. There used to be an old guy in the gym named Dale. Dale was a mechanic that had smashed his arm when he was younger and it now did not go straight, it went out crooked. I didn't know this for year but what I did know was that he would use every 2.5 and 5 lb plate in the gym on bench press, he had grey hair, and he could bench well over 300 lbs AND it would take him darn near 2 hours to get there. Upon asking one day, he showed me his arm and told me that it took a lot more warming up than it did TRAINING for him to get to where he was going. Two decades ago I thought he was crazy. On this day, I began thinking. If we look at our training for the day in sets, reps, and percents, we generally have an idea of how many reps we need to do at a certain percent to be effective. For the most part, we need a good deal of work in the 80%+ range for strength training to be effective. As I've gotten older I've done more work in the 60-75% range as well BUT doing work in that range does seem to take a lot off of the top of my training with the heavier weights (80% and above). What I've found is that if I need a lot of warm up it is better to take several sets of 10 with the empty bar or say 25% as well as a lot of sets of 3 with 35% than it is to take multiple sets in the 60-70% range. For example: 25% x 5 x 3 sets 35% x 3 x 5 sets 45% x 3 x 3 sets 55% x 2 x 2 sets (this is normally the set where I can judge my speed and how my day will go) 65% x 2 75% x 2 85% x 1 90-95% x 1 I can actually normally skip the 90-95% set if I need a heavy set on this day BECAUSE I've done so much work on the lighter end of my session. Rest is at a minimum and ACDC is kept at a maximum. Let me explain while on the incline bench for you...