Warming up… but it’s so boring!

Warming up is so boring but key in an athlete’s day. Hello Peeps! Week 3, Email 3. I’m proud of me.

This week I want to discuss warming up; the most important part is at the bottom so make sure you read all. Every session I give you has a warmup. From low HR on the bike to easy trot on the run to cruising a few hundred meters on the swim. Each session asks you to warm the body up before commencing with the quality part of the session.

Yes, it’s boring and slow but here are some of the reasons why we warmup:

The massively obvious and most important one is injury prevention! We sit with bad posture. We stand with bad posture. We drive with bad posture. We play on our phones with bad posture. Our muscles aren’t activated and remain ‘cold’. When it is then time to train, we need to then warm them up by pumping some blood through them to wake them up and lengthen them out to get ready to work. Asking a cold tight muscle to immediately undergo massive stress will strain it or tear it. Calves and hamstrings… EEK! Some science in italics (italics makes it true):
Relaxed, sitting in your chair and reading this email produces a relatively low 15- to 20-percent of blood flow to your skeletal muscles. Most of the small blood vessels (capillaries) within those muscles are closed. After 10 to 12 minutes of total body exercise, blood flow to the skeletal muscles increases to some 70 to 75 percent and the capillaries open.

A good warmup can also enhance your performance in the session. Oxygen is released more readily when the blood is at a higher temperature. More blood into the muscle providing more oxygen to the muscle will give you an awesome muscle to do your session with. OXYGEN IS LIFE! GREEN BLOCKS ARE LIFE!
The warmup gives you a chance to do drills and practice good form. During the intervals, there is no time to think about form and technique so one should use the warmup to practice perfect form. Its 10-20 mins of mind and body coming together before the pain starts… Try the below:
Bike – low heart rate warming up – try single-leg pedaling – forcing your heel downwards on the downstroke – getting a push, slide, pull perfect power circle on the pedal

Run – very slow-paced run – practice striking under your hip – pushing off backward – nice high cadence – running as the Kenyans do

Swim – super slow warmup – try stroking as slowly as possible to move across the pool – lift the elbow high – feel and grab the water as you pull yourself over your hand – rotating your hips

But here is the BIG one and the one I’m sure MOST of you IGNORE… PRE-RACE WARMUPS!!!

I bet ALL of you can say you have started a race from a cold start. I have. Too many times. TOO MANY TIMES!!!!! And no matter how many times you think you will start easy… BOOM! You have just recorded your fastest km or highest heart rate in the first 7mins of the race!

You spend a lot of money on your races. You spend a lot of hours training getting to the race. You spend a lot of energy being nervous and excited for your race. Your race deserves a warmup like your training sessions get
because the start of ANY race places a lot of stress on your body:

• Overtaking slow runners who managed to get seeded ahead of you
• Avoiding nervous cyclists trying to not miss the break
• Flapping swimmers trying to swim over you
• You need your body to be warm to handle this stress (remember the injury thing above) and you need you body to be warm to perform in the race (remember the oxygen in the blood thing above) and you want to race with the great form you have in training (remember the practicing drills thing above).

Give your races the same respect you give your training sessions because a race is just an extension of your training. Arrive early. Make the time. Get sweating way before the gun goes off. Smash the race from the start. TEXT YOUR COACH (see the trend here) and thank him for your PB.

That is all. Bye.

DS
WM