Warming Up

Want to race faster? Get an effective warm up routine.

“With the possible exception of the national debt, fewer things are more universally ignored than a proper warm up.”
(Scott Tinley)

Missing or compromising your warm up will, at best, give a compromised performance, or worse, lead to injury.

But, learning how to warm up effectively can lead to improved race performance.

Understanding what a warm up does, and how it can improve performance, may persuade you to give it more time and attention.

A warm up has several purposes:

• To elevate body temperature
• To increase blood flow to the muscles and associated soft tissues
• Enhancing muscle contractility, speed and strength
• Reducing risk of muscle injury
• Improving the speed of nervous system activity and coordination of movement
• Improving the VO2 kinetic response to exercise

While the first 5 points above may be familiar, VO2 kinetics is perhaps less well understood.

The term refers to the change in oxygen uptake following the start of exercise, specifically, the rate at which it increases. At the start of a race, you move from relative inactivity to intense activity in a few seconds or so. The change in energy requirements cannot all be met aerobically as the system is too slow. Other, ‘anaerobic’, energy systems are used to supply the energy. The difference between the total energy requirement and the energy that can be provided aerobically is known as the oxygen deficit. The greater the O2 deficit, the greater the need for anaerobic systems to supply energy, with fatiguing consequences.

So, how can you reduce this O2 deficit, lessen its associated fatigue, spare glycogen and so improve performance? Yep, ensure you get a good warm up before the start.

But what is an effective warm up?

• It should be least 10 – 15 minutes, preferably 15 – 30 minutes.
• It needs to include some relatively high intensity exercise, enough to raise blood lactate to around threshold levels. This is roughly 10k running pace, 25 mile bike TT pace or 1500m swimming pace.
• Three to five intervals of one minute each should be sufficient, with 3 minutes or more recovery between each interval.
• This should follow 10-15 minutes of easier exercise of gradually increasing intensity.
• Aim to complete your warm up about 15 minutes prior to race start.

Caution is needed though, as a warm up which is too intense and, or, doesn’t allow enough recovery time before the race start can be detrimental to performance. Off season is the time to experiment to see what works best for you. Low key road or cross country races are a good opportunity to fine tune your own warm up routine.