Warming Up

My preference (and I think this is largely a preference question) is for more thorough warmups before my more intense workouts. I'll do at least 10 minutes with a few spinups before an L5 interval workout, but for an SST or endurance ride it's a couple minutes to get the trainer warmed up and then right to it.

Unless you find that insufficiently warming up is hurting your workout, I wouldn't cut the workout in order to increase the warmup/cooldown. In a pinch, I'd probably cut the cooldown out completely, but I'm not going to say that's the right thing to do.

YMMV, but I warm up for 10 min before L3, 15-20 min before L4, minimum of 30 min before L5/L6.

Piotr said:

YMMV, but I warm up for 10 min before L3, 15-20 min before L4, minimum of 30 min before L5/L6.

+1 About the same for me. The general consensus seems to be that more intense workouts require longer warmup time. However, everyone is built differently, and I suppose there are some genetic freaks out there who need very little or no warmup before the intense stuff.

To Kopride: how does your interval performance change when you do a longer or shorter warmup? That will give you your best answer!

As somebody blessed with "all the time in the world" - I warm up for 20mins before I do my 2X20's. [img]cyclingforums.combiggrin.gifOpen ↗[/img]

Piotr said:

YMMV, but I warm up for 10 min before L3, 15-20 min before L4, minimum of 30 min before L5/L6.

Dear God....

Do you carbo load for that?:p

swampy1970 said:

Dear God....

I think you have me confused with Someone else. 😄

If I do the intervals outside enviroment sets my warmup and cooldown to 20-30 minutes but on a trainer 5-10 minutes is fine (drinking a lot during that). If I am very short of time and doing L4 I start the first interval with a bit lower power and up that eg. every 5 minutes, ending up with target average. My trainer 2x20 workouts look very much like yours and I don't feel any worse or lack power comparing to outside sets with much more warmup.

For L5 I don't do shortcuts in warmup (maybe that's just mental) but still I think 10 minutes with 1-2 minutes at FTP zone is enough.

As Frenchy & Piotr have pointed out, this is largely a personal matter. After ~25 years I've found that 5-10 min's for any workout is sufficient for warm up. For races I might go as long as 20 min's.

Dave

I'm old and slow, but most of the time it's an hour before I feel warmed-up and ready to race. Can you guys give some examples of warm-ups?

dkrenik said:

As Frenchy & Piotr have pointed out, this is largely a personal matter. After ~25 years I've found that 5-10 min's for any workout is sufficient for warm up. For races I might go as long as 20 min's.

Dave

Piotr said:

I think you have me confused with Someone else. 😄

You know the doc has pills of omnipotence... I think it comes from sitting on those little carbon saddles. 😉

kopride said:

...Assuming that I am time limited,...A classic example for me is a 5-10 minute warmup, 20 minute @ SST; 5 minute rest, 20 minute @ SST, 5-10 minute cool down. If I extend the warm up, rest, or cool down period, I probably will need to shorten the intervals.

Hi, can you consider (if possible) to reduce rest time between intvl according to heart rate beats (heartmonitor can be helpful) and breath freq. Start next interval when HR reach a fixed rest limit (ie 75% FCmax). Can be you recover faster (then current 5 min), or can be you need more time (hard workload).

Bye Matteo 🙂

matteobma said:

Hi, can you consider (if possible) to reduce rest time between intvl according to heart rate beats (heartmonitor can be helpful) and breath freq. Start next interval when HR reach a fixed rest limit (ie 75% FCmax). Can be you recover faster (then current 5 min), or can be you need more time (hard workload).

Bye Matteo 🙂

I might physically be recovered in less than 5 minutes, but I would think a 5 minute rest between 2 long intervals like this is about as short as you could go. I find 2 x 20s to be a pretty tough mental grind. Again, I would rather limit the warm up than shorten the break.

I fully agree. Less than 5 min. rest between 2 L4 Intervals is simply too short and taking it over the edge. For L4's the warm up period might be fairly short as this won't stress the whole system too much - Remember an L4 interval (20 or 30min) should be performed at a level you could do 60min consecutive if need be.

swampy1970 said:

You know the doc has pills of omnipotence... I think it comes from sitting on those little carbon saddles. 😉

That's a nice euphemism. 🙂

kopride said:

I might physically be recovered in less than 5 minutes, but I would think a 5 minute rest between 2 long intervals like this is about as short as you could go. I find 2 x 20s to be a pretty tough mental grind. Again, I would rather limit the warm up than shorten the break.

I would agree if your 2 x 20s were done @ FTP or just above (CP20), but for SST (in my case that's 90-95% FTP) why not dispense of rests and just do a 1 x 40 or more?

Piotr said:

I would agree if your 2 x 20s were done @ FTP or just above (CP20), but for SST (in my case that's 90-95% FTP) why not dispense of rests and just do a 1 x 40 or more?

Sadist! :eek: A 1 x 40 is my workout if I really have less than an hour (from donning my cycling gear to getting off the trainer), but I find 2 x 20s to be more tolerable if I am doing a lot of indoor SST, which I do at least 2 x week. Most of my indoor stuff is at this level and for intervals of 20 minutes or more. I also like Tyson's 1 x 30 and 1 x 10 to switch things up indoors. On the road outdoors, I actually like 60 minute SST rides with a brief (10-15 minute) warmup if I am relatively time stressed. if I don't have 2 hours minimum to ride, I am probably going to just jump on indoors. So in 2 hours, I can usually get my gear and bike ready, escape any real traffic and ride a solid 1 hour interval, with enough time for a shower and cool down. For me, 3-4 hours of free time where my time is not spoken for by family or work is a real luxury.