TT warm up

The shorter the race, the longer the warm-up. Many on here may have very indepth warmups, but for me its just about getting the body going. I don't even want to break a sweat. I find i have no better performances following a simple warmup as compared to a complex one. For a short TT (less than 10 miles) i typically get on the bike 1 hour before my start time. 20 minutes of easy spinning, then a few one minute efforts around threshold (maybe a little higher, closer to race pace)with 2-3 minutes in between each (10 minutes total). 10 more minutes of spinning. 5 minutes at or just below threshold, and then spin easy for 5 minutes or so. Get off the bike 10 minutes before the start, slam a gel, grab some water, and off you go. It is good to get all of the energy systems up and running, lactate clearing, etc, but it doesn't take much. You want your system ready to go from the gun and with 5 miles you don't have any room to take off easy and build up to your goal pace. Warmup is huge for such a short race. I'm sure there will be lots of opinons on this, so take all you learn, think about each of the posts, and build your own warm up routine. Also a fan blowing on you as you warm up in the shade, and a wet tshirt if it's hot are good to keep you from overheating and getting dehydrated. Also drink during the warmup.

Thanks very much

giannip said:

Thanks very much

you can try some of the old Wattage list threads. The only thing I can say is that the fresher I am ... the less warmup I feel I need. When the legs are stiff/sore, or I feel tired overall, or it's cold then I feel like warming up more ... pretty common I guess.

I've never done a structured warmup or brought a trainer to a local race to warm up on. That'd look I was serious or something 🙂

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giannip said:

Later in the year there is a 3 day stage race in which one stage is a 5ml TT.

I was wondering about some suggestions re: warming up for such a short event?

The day is split so that the TT is in the morning and a road stage is in the afternoon.

thanks
G

Right when you get on the bike do a jump. then wait and recover for 5 minuets and do another. Do that 3 times.

Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed my better TT races are when I have later start times and the starts are delayed, often giving me an extra 10-15 minutes to warm-up. I tend to mostly bike around (many of our races are on rural roads) vs on the trainer. I find it mimics the terrain I'll be racing and gives me an insight to how I'll fair in certain directions based on the wind. I also notice my power output is more even with a longer warmup.

I also found that my best races were when I had a better warm up. Thanks all for the input.

Fastguppy.....do you want me to pull a muscle or something ? 😄