Warm Up Advice

[ChronoFish]

Hi there,

I'm curious how other racers warm up prior to a race. Not just those
who loosen up - that's what I do. I would like hear from those who
actually warm-up.

It occurred to me while watching Apolo Ohno (The Olympic short-course
speed skater) warm-up for a race. He (and several other) athletes were
spinning on stationary bikes.

I've found that for swimming my speed "switch" turns on after about
500-800 yrds in the pool. I've not found where that "speed switch" is
for my bike. For running I can easily do 45 minutes - 1hour worth of
interval training with no more than 7-10 minutes at a moderate pace.

I have found that doing a preview lap of a 6 mile TT does wonders to
improving my time. I found that the bike seems to be the place that
where I really need to warm up. But recently I was on a computrainer
and felt like my "warm up lap" destroyed me. Maybe I was going to hard
on the warm up?

So while I know I need some warm up, I'm always afraid that I'm going
to tire myself out - I can't see myself riding 24 miles before an
Olympic distance race for instance.

How do you warm up without hindering your performance?

-CF

 

[ZAP-70]

ChronoFish <[email protected]> wrote:

> How do you warm up without hindering your performance?

The shorter the race, the longer the warmup. This is a golden rule.

For a 100 m sprint athletes can warm up for more than 1 hour. For a
marathon just to be a finisher it is nonsense warming up, just running
easy for the first kms is fine!

Consider that also temperature is an important factor, besides distance.

It is controverse whether stretching *before* running is useful or not.

For example for a 10 K I used to run easy for 5 mins.... try the race
pace and then do some 100 m sprints at 80% to pump my body up.

For a 4 K campestrial run at 2°C I certainly warmed up much more. With
skips...

Hope this was somehow useful

Ciao!