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Warming Up:
There’s no cure-all for this common question
One thing many working-class racers are looking for is to simplify their
training. They want straightforward, easy answers and concrete solutions.
In line with that thinking, one of the most common requests I get as a
coach is for a set, simple warm-up routine that will work every time.
The problem of course is that there are no easy answers and concrete solutions,
and there is no magic warm up routine that will work for everyone. That
said, it is still possible through trial and error to develop a routine
based on a set of different conditions that will work for you.
How you warm up for an event will depend on a number of factors: what
type of event is it? How long is the event? How important is the event
to you? How soon do you need to be at your maximum in the event? What
are the weather conditions? Course profile? It’s important to know
the answer to these questions, because your warm up might vary from an
hour of riding with intervals to simply riding from your car to the start
line and making sure your bike is working.
The shorter and more intense the event, the longer the warm up has to
be, and vice versa. I bring up the extreme of simply riding from your
car to the start not as a joke, but as a real example. Recently I did
my first 100K road race of the year. It was cold and wet, my mind was
elsewhere, my motivation was low, and the race was long enough to count
as my training for the day without me needing to do any extra. So, I got
dressed, sat in my warm car doing the crossword puzzle until people started
lining up, got on my bike for the first time all day, and rode to the
start line. I used the first half of the race to sit in and warm up, bridged
to the breakaway once things had settled down, and won the race.
In this case, the race was plenty long enough that I knew I’d have
time to warm up. I had no intentions of going with the first move of the
day, and there were no major climbs that I had to be ready for. It was
also cold enough out that warming up might have had the opposite effect;
it was much warmer in my car, and I didn’t want to start the race
already freezing from being outside trying to warm up. So, this is definitely
one end of the spectrum, but a good lesson in taking into account every
consideration you face.
At the other end of the extreme, you might have a short time trial where
you’ll only be racing for 15 minutes or less, and need to be 100%
open and ready from start to finish. In this case, your warm up will not
only be longer, but also more intense. Opening up all the energy systems
with one interval in each training zone is often the most complete, compact
warm up, and ideal to do on a stationary trainer. Work up from the lowest
intensity, and do the shortest block possible in each: 10-15 minutes easy,
10 minutes of light intensity, 5 minutes easy, 5 minutes of middle intensity,
5 easy, 3 minutes of high intensity, 5 easy, 1 minute of submaximal intensity,
5 easy, and one max sprint. If you time this well so that you can climb
off your trainer and go straight to the start line, you’ll be about
as warmed up as you get, if the warm up itself hasn’t cracked you.
As you can see, this is a long warm up, around 45 minutes. It really should
only be done like this when you have a very short event that will have
you anaerobic almost the entire time. It’s very easy to "over"
warm up and it’s important not to do more than your own fitness and
endurance can handle. I often see people on the trainer for what seems
like hours before a criterium, sweating away, doing intervals, and lighting
matches they could be using in the race. They’re exhausted before
they even get off of the trainer. If your training time is limited and
you often are pressed to get in an hour a day during the week, the last
thing you need is to spend an hour on the trainer before your event. Don’t
make your warm up harder than your normal workout.
The ideal approach is to use your own training rides and interval workouts
as your data source. When you do intervals, when do you normally feel
the best? After and extended block of light intensity, aerobic work? After
your first threshold interval? After the first few sprints? What opens
you up the best and leaves you primed for the rest of the workout? I think
you’ll find for most events, a warm up that’s somewhere in the
middle of the two extremes I presented will be ideal. I know that in training
I always feel best after my first block of 15-30 minutes of light intensity,
at 81-90% of lactate threshold. That’s enough to open me up, but
not so much that it leaves me without enough reserve for events that last
about an hour, like a criterium or a cyclo-cross race. If I’m serious
about warming up (which is a battle enough) that’s the approach I’ve
found works best for me. It’s important to experiment and discover
what works best for you while keeping in mind all the factors that will
change your warm up routine from race to race.
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