How?

What’s the perfect warm-up? Answer: there isn’t one. The ideal warm-up should be individual to you and what you need it to achieve.

Whether you are in the gym, out on the bike or doing any other indoor or outdoor activity though, your warm-up should, for simplicity if nothing else, have two main parts; General and Specific.

The General

This is the simple but often over-done part. This is the part that gets you from stationary to moving, cold to warm (remember how important that is?). The general portion of your warm-up involves moving at a moderate and gradual increasing intensity for two to eight minutes. You can use whatever activity you want but practicalities are important. Generally I like to use simple two legs on the ground activities. Jogging with changes of direction, jumping jacks and centre jumps, skipping rope or whatever is simplest and most effective given your situation.

Start smooth and slow, build so you get beyond the point where your breathing rate is fast and heavy, trying to catch up, to a point where the temperature in your body has increased enough that your heart and lungs are pumping oxygen-rich blood around the body but you feel no fatigue!

If you are going to hit the weights in the gym or bust out some Pumptrack laps for fun then this general part of the warm-up can be short and concise. But if you are going to carry out some longer intervals or attack a trail ride with some difficult trail right off the bat then allowing your body to get warm enough that you are effectively exchanging oxygen will make life a lot more enjoyable. Look to get to the point where you are moving at a decent pace or intensity while your breathing rate settles and you can maintain a staggered but effective conversation.

As we said above, winter time, especially in its extremes, can make getting warm a little more challenging. So the simple solution is… layers! Whether you’re indoors or out, if the air temperature is low then starting your warm-up with plenty of layers on and gradual taking them off as your body temp increases is the easiest way to have an effective general warm-up. Sounds obvious but a lot of people only dress for how they are going to feel once warm and don’t think about the actual “getting warm”. Beanies, base layer, mid layer, jackets, tights, overshoes, whatever it takes! It might sound like a serious pain in the rear-end but it doesn’t have to be. If we are talking about a warm-up before a gym session or some sort of outdoor activity where you aren’t going to travel too far then you can just make a pile of clothes on the ground as you de-robe during your general and specific portions of warming up. If however you are going on a two hour road ride or trail shred then carrying three extra layers may not be an option. So just be practical, start your warm-up at home or next to your parked car or van, use rollers, turbo trainer, jumping jacks inside or outside, get warm, drop some layers, get warmer, drop the beanie and more layers in the house or on the backseat and then hit the trails or road for your Specific warm-up, the final piece before you start having fun!

The Specific

This is the often over-looked part of the process. Generally caused by too little education, the specific portion of the warm-up needs to be effective, no more no less.  Focus on getting the body ready for the main activity. If you need to warm-up for your strength training in the gym then using a Dynamic Mobility Warm-up like that covered in part two of my “No more weakly warriors” series is perfect.

If you are warming up for a trail ride with friends then some easy pedalling, two to three short “builds” (increase in speed and force on pedals) and a few dynamic mobility moves off the bike followed by a few more minutes of gradually increasing intensity pedalling, some cornering drills and a few bunny hops should be enough to get you ready to shred!

If you are going to have a sprint or power training session on the bike like those covered in the last instalment of “No more weakly warriors” then the specific part of your warm-up should reflect the needs of that session. Build your warmth and general readiness in the general portion then look to prepare the body in the specific portion for the demands to come. If you are going to be sprinting hard from a standing start then include some high cadence “spins” in the specific part of the warm-up, e.g. while rolling downhill slowly spin your legs in an easy gear as fast as possible for three to six secs. Do this two to four times with an adequate rest period between. It will prepare the leg muscles to contract quickly without building huge amounts of fatigue that could affect your main session.

You could also include a portion of activity that would induce “PAP” in your pre-sprint warm-up. By “pre-conditioning” your sprinting muscles with a high powered but very short sprint just prior to the main activity you can greatly improve your performance in that main activity. I won’t go into the exact science but try including just one uphill standing start four to five pedal stroke sprint in a hard gear about one min before you start your main sprint training session and you could see some big jumps in your ability to push hard on those pedals!