The Time-Crunched Cyclist Podcast by CTS

Mastering the Perfect Warm-Up: Elevate Your Cycling Performance (#227)

• CTS • Season 4 • Episode 227

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OVERVIEW
Warmup routines change based on the physical and mental demands of a competition or training session. There are general rules of thumb like, "The shorter the race the long the warmup", but Coach Adam Pulford dives deeper and describes exactly how long to warm up on the bike and with what range of intensities, along with dynamic activities cyclists can do off the bike - or in the start corral - to compete or train at your best.

TOPICS COVERED

  • Warm up rules of thumb
  • The Short warmup (7-10 minutes)
  • Medium warmup (20 minutes)
  • Long warmups (30-45 minutes)
  • Example: Long warmup before hard training (25-30 minutes)
  • Example: Race warmup (45 minutes)
  • Example: Alternative short race warmup (20 minutes)
  • Dynamic Warmup and Activation Exercises
  • Do Masters athletes need a longer warmup?
  • Creating a good dynamic warmup
  • Time-Crunched Warmups and Race Start Corrals

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RESOURCES

  1. EXAMPLE Warm up before hard Training: ~25-30min
    1. 10-15min of easy endurance spinning
    2. 3x1min FastPedals (high cadence, moderate power) with 1min RBI, spin easy for 2-3min then move on to
    3. 2x20s openers with 2-3min RBI
    4. Build into your main set, and have at it! 
      1. Good for a 90min session with hard, zone 4+ intervals
  2. EXAMPLERace Warm Up: 45min
    1. 10-15min of easy endurance spinning
    2. 3x1min FastPedals (high cadence, moderate power) with 1min RBI
    3. 2x4min Threshold efforts with 3min RBI
    4. 2x20s openers with 2-3min RBI
    5. 5-10min easy spinning
  3. EXAMPLE Simple Race Warm Up: 20min
    1. 7-10min easy endurance spinning 
    2. 3min build from Tempo to Threshold
    3. 2min easy 
    4. 1x20s Opener
    5. 3-5min easy spinning 

LINKS

HOST
Adam Pulford has been a CTS Coach for nearly two decades and holds a B.S. in Exercise Physiology. He's participated in and coached hundreds of athletes for endurance events all around the world.

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Speaker 1:

From the team at CTS. This is the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast, our show dedicated to answering your training questions and providing actionable advice to help you improve your performance even if you're strapped for time. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford, and I'm one of the over 50 professional coaches who make up the team at CTS. In each episode, I draw on our team's collective knowledge, other coaches and experts in the field to provide you with the practical ways to get the most out of your training and ultimately become the best cyclist that you can be. Now on to our show. Now onto our show. Welcome back, time Crunch fans. I'm your host, coach Adam Pulford. If this is your first time joining us, welcome.

Speaker 1:

You found the endurance training podcast with no commercials, ads or crazy long rabbit holes. Why? Because no one has an infinite amount of time, so why waste it With? That said, let's get right into today's topic, and that is warming up before training or racing. The question came from a younger athlete of mine that I recently started working with, but I get this question a lot From any age, time crunched time, rich racers, non-racers and everyone in between. His question was simply this what is the best warmup, and should I do activation exercises before warming up on the bike. My answer it depends why. So, depending on the goal of the workout or the demands of the race, you may need more or less time to warm up. Remember, we don't like to waste time on this podcast, nor do we like to waste time in a warm-up. So let's unravel what goes into the best warm-up routines for certain situations, and I'll give some examples along the way.

Speaker 1:

First off, let's cover some general rules of thumb. I'm just going to go bullet point after bullet point here and I'll explain myself as we get into the meat and potatoes of it. General rules of thumb Shorter the race, longer the warmup. Longer the race. Longer the warmup. Longer the race. Shorter the warmup.

Speaker 1:

Now, if there's lots of intensity in the race or the workout early on, you also want a longer warmup. If you've been sitting all day and you're you work a desk job and you just don't move a lot, make sure definitely to do a warmup. And I would warm up in various ways, including the activation exercise and some stuff that we'll talk about and incorporate that into a dynamic warmup routine, as I like to call it. Now here are the main points. I'm going to give them to you right away at the start of the podcast and then I'll summarize with him at the end as well. Well, a good warmup will increase core temperature, get a good sweat going, improve muscle coordination, joint mobility and engaged mind with body. It'll also reduce the chance of injury and get you ready for a hard training session or race. Now there's a good recipe to follow, but there's no magic routine or secret warmup out there, other than finding what works best for you in various situations, then make it simple, consistent and then actually do it. Now, like I said, there's both a mind and body component to a warmup in that process, and it's important to recognize both.

Speaker 1:

Now let's look at different scenarios of when it's best to use a short warm up, when it's best to use a long warm up or some version of a dynamic warm up in some combination of all of them. So let's take a look at the short warm up. One scenario is when you're just riding endurance for the day. A short warm up is totally fine. Call it 10 minutes, easy spinning. Then build into your zone two and ride there for X amount of time. Whatever's prescribed, keep it simple, don't overthink it. You don't need to get more fancy than that. Another one is if you're short on time, you're still better off doing a little bit of something than nothing at all before smashing into an interval set or towing the line at a race.

Speaker 1:

I remember Lindsay Golich telling us as resident coaches years and years ago at CTS that all energy systems are active and you're warm in, you're warmed up, you're ready to go within seven to 10 minutes of aerobic exercise. That was in regard to um, doing some lactate and VO2 max testing. Because the question was asked is why don't we only give them a seven to 10 minute ramp up protocol and then go up from there? And that was that was her answer. It was like, straight up, everything's warmed up after that. Now I'm going to probably get some pushback on that and there are some asterisks there, okay, because I don't always prescribe just 10 minutes of warmup. I'll get into that here in a minute.

Speaker 1:

But I'm telling you that, from a physiological standpoint, systems are warm, systems are ready, systems are activated. There's other things that we can do to make it feel better, go better and, again, connect mind with body. But have the confidence to know that if you get short on time, seven to 10 minutes away, we go all good, okay, there's nothing wrong with that, okay, from a physical standpoint. So, even when you're for the time, crunch cyclists out there, even when your 60 minute training window gets shortened down to 45 minutes because something happens, life happens, a meeting runs long, or something like that, still do at least seven minutes and then build up to your main set. Just don't skip the warmup. If you have more time, we can do a bit more in the warmup, for sure, but let's keep it simple.

Speaker 1:

Now remember one of the general rules of thumb that I stated earlier the longer the race, the shorter the warmup. What this means is, since the race is going to be longer, okay, take a long gravel race or something like that that's a hundred miles long. You may be able to simply use the first 20 to 30 minutes of the race as your warmup, especially if there's a neutral start, or you're simply going to finish and you don't care about keeping up with the main group or age groupers, or you're going for the win, or something like that. You can use the first part of the race to warm up, completely appropriate. I do that a lot For examples like that long gravel race, or maybe you do want to make the front group or you do have performance goals in your age category, and this can be a little tricky because now there's going to be some high intensity in the first hour or so that you want to be a part of and you have to be ready for it, but you're still riding for like five, seven, eight hours or more. So I'd still keep it fairly short, since you want to conserve your muscle glycogen and your hydration.

Speaker 1:

Here's one example 20 minute warmup. Very simple, starts with 10 minutes easy endurance, spinning three minutes of tempo, which is a perceived effort, or six or seven out of 10. And then you want to do two 20 second openers, which are ramp up to hard effort, like a start at an eight, ramp up to a nine over the course of 20 seconds super short. Just get the lactate spiked up there and let your body know some efforts are coming. Take two minutes easy in between and then easy spinning up to the start corral so you can get after it. That's a very simple warm-up that I prescribe to my athletes who are doing something like this. We want to just do a little bit of something so that we don't have cold legs going into the race itself.

Speaker 1:

So now let's talk about long warm-ups. When do you need to use a long warm-up? Well, remember our rules of thumb Shorter the race or harder the intensity. Early on, you want a longer warm-up. Some good examples of this is when you're doing high intensity interval sets in your training or you've got a race like a cross country mountain bike race, a cycle cross race, a crit time trial, a swift race, something like that.

Speaker 1:

What does a good long warmup look like? The recipe starts with easy aerobic effort and it builds progressively up in intensity, hitting the threshold in some short anaerobic capacity efforts, then finishes with easy aerobic spinning Even the example I gave you above with that short warmup before the gravel race. It follows that same pattern. Every warmup should touch all three energy systems, bring out a sweat, get the heart rate up and finish with some easy spinning to start clearing the excess lactate that you produced at those higher intensity efforts. But you want to do all of this without leaving you fatigued for the actual main set or the race or whatever you're going to do next. When you have a little bit more time, you can just scale this up a bit more without rushing, and make sure that the aerobic, the glycolytic and the neuromuscular systems are fully activated.

Speaker 1:

Next, you know what my advice is make it your own. Okay, I'll give you some examples here, but I really want to encourage everyone to find a routine that works for you. Refine it, tweak it and, using the general rules of thumb that I stated in the in the first part of this episode, then learn how to change and adjust the warmup on the fly, as things may change, cause things always do. More on that later, but for now, let's look at some good, longer warmup examples and keep in mind too, for those listening uh, I'll have this in our show notes, and for, um, our, our YouTube watchers, we're going to try to post this as well. Okay, and you can find that in the show notes too, no matter where you are looking.

Speaker 1:

First example is a long warmup before hard training. This one's going to take about 25 to 30 minutes. It'll start with 10 to 15 minutes of easy endurance spinning. Then you'll go into a three by one minute fast pedal interval session, and that's going to be high cadence, and it could be anywhere at 90, 100, 110, 120, whatever high is for you. You want to do it so that you're you're spinning at a high cadence, but a moderate power. We're talking like zone three or below. Cadence is the focus, not the power. You want to build up to a point where you're almost bouncing in the saddle and then dial it down two or three RPMs. That's a fast pedal. Okay, you'll do three by one minute with one minute in between, and then you'll spin easy for two to three minutes. After that little set is finished, you'll then do your two by 20 second openers with two to three minutes. After that little set is finished, you'll then do your two by 20 second openers with two to three minutes of easy spinning between, and then build into your main set. Have at it. Okay, this is great for a 90 minute session with some hard let's call it zone four and above sort of intervals. That's a good one to get the heart rate up, get the legs spinning fast without causing any fatigue. It's a good go-to warmup for all my athletes, okay.

Speaker 1:

Second example for race warmup. This one's going to be around 45 minutes. Okay, this one's great for those cross country mountain bike races, cycle cross races, time trials, things like this Starts again with 10, 15 minutes of easy spinning at endurance. Three by one minute, fast pedal, which is the high cadence moderate power, one minute in between. Then I'm going to have the athlete do two by four minutes at threshold so that threshold, again the perceived effort, is seven to eight out of 10. The recovery is three minutes. In between We'll do two by 20 second openers with a couple minutes of easy spinning and then we finish with five to 10 minutes of easy spinning.

Speaker 1:

And I always tell the athlete make sure to plan that warmup with enough time that you can get through all of it, then use the restroom, then you get up to the line to do your race. It's usually about 10 minutes before and you still have that sweat going but have plenty of time to do it so that you're not rushed and you're not stressed going into the race. So again, a good, uh, short, hard race warmup should be a little bit longer and that one should take you 40 to 45 minutes. Now finally, for those who think all of that is way too long, uh, what is a shorter? What is the minimum? Uh, race warmup or hard interval set warmup that I would recommend? Do what I do I'm the laziest coach you'll probably ever meet Seven to 10 minutes of easy endurance spinning, three minutes, build up to tempo or threshold. Two minutes easy spinning one by 20, second opener, and then three, five minute easy spinning, something like that, and that should take you 20 minutes. Okay, again, reminder, the recipe is start easy, progress up through all the intensities, get in that anaerobic effort, spike the lactate up, spin it out and you're good to go.

Speaker 1:

So now let's take a look at what a dynamic warmup is and we'll look at activation exercises as well. But first let's define things here. Dynamic warmup is simply moving the body and your joints through a full range of motion to increase muscle activation, core temperature, improve coordination and mobility. Classic examples of this include arm circles, leg swings, walking, lunges, inchworm, high knees, butt kicks, bounding or skipping. For some of those who are maybe 40 to 50 year old and I'm saying some of those exercises, you can think back to gym class or maybe some team sports back in the late 90s or early 2000s, and that's really when dynamic warmups became popular, was around that time period, and it was a better. We found out. Physiologists and coaches and practitioners found out it was better preparation for practice and competition in those team sports and track and field and things like that, compared to static stretching or just a low intensity cardio or quote, aka, general warmup.

Speaker 1:

Okay, personally, I use a mix of things in my dynamic warmup routines for athletes, including some of the classic things like arm circles and leg swings, but I also include exercises and movements like a down dog stretch. Okay, that's pulling from some yoga routines. I use body weight squats, lateral lunges, donkey kicks, clamshells, glute raises and just a straight up jump rope session. Okay, some of those, some of those movements are also known as activation exercises, and the only difference between a dynamic warmup and an activation exercise is that the former is a bit more general, it's a gross motor movement pattern, and the latter is more specific, it's targeted work. Remember, there's no magic routine or specific secret movement, only the routine that works for you. So mix and match, try several different things and see what works for you for the given scenario.

Speaker 1:

I use a dynamic warmup and activation routines for many of my athletes, especially when the interval sets are high intensity or the race is technical. Are high intensity or the race is technical, and that technicality or the technical aspect of a race it's going to incorporate upper body work too. So driving your bike through single track or hard corners through a criterium. My off-road athletes out there XCO, cyclocross, enduro racers you know what I'm talking about. I use these before strength training sessions as well. Five to 10 minutes of a dynamic warmup will make your strength session feel a lot better and help prevent injury as well. Also, a quick five-minute routine before you hop on the bike is great for people like myself and a lot of you listening, who sit a lot for your job and don't move around much. Even five minutes of these movements that I mentioned gets the body less dormant and more engaged. It gets you ready to ride.

Speaker 1:

This can also be a time and space for your brain to disengage from work and start to focus on your ride. I find that many masters athletes tell me they need a longer warmup before they feel good. When I look at the measurables in both power files from my athletes as well as research okay, of what we can quantify to question, is that true? We're talking about heart rate, power, core temperature, muscle temperature, things like this. The body's ready to go in, like I said, like 10 minutes Okay. Sure, on a cold day that might be a little bit longer, but I tend to find that these comments from athletes busy athletes, time crunched athletes. It's more related to the brain being focused on other things like work, family or whatever issues you were just dealing with, before you come to your training session. So I did a dynamic warmup. Something that involves different movement patterns, coordination and concentration, can help get the brain unfixed from life and engaged in the moment with movement, thus speeding up the time it takes you, to quote, feel fully warmed up. So what's the recipe for a good dynamic warm-up? I like to think about it like this it's about five to seven movements total, and that's that's appropriate. Okay, you can add on a little bit more, a little bit less, but using some of the movements that I mentioned earlier and I'll also link to some articles with other good ideas Start with the easier movements, first smaller muscle groups, things like this and then you want to move toward the more complicated, more involved exercises.

Speaker 1:

You want to do each movement for 10 to 20 seconds and then have a short time in between. For example, if you were doing forward arm swings for 10 seconds and then backward arm swings for 10 seconds, I would take 10 to 20 second. Call it recovery if you want between or before doing the next set of arm circles or the next exercise. It doesn't have to be super scripted or precise. You're just moving, you're getting your body activated, and these are low intensity movements which you don't need a ton of time to recover from.

Speaker 1:

Traditionally, for a dynamic warmup, you do two to three sets of each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. For example, do two to three sets of the arm circles before moving on to the leg swings. Do two to three sets of those before you move on to the walking lunge, etc. Etc. On we go. I also build some routines where the athletes simply start with one exercise and they go on to the next exercise fluidly. So number one through seven, then you take a minute or two and then you repeat. You can structure it however you want and however it works best for you, so long as it's progressive in intensity and you start simple and move to the more complicated toward the end. So that'll get you nice and loosened up, it'll get the muscles activated, it'll get the brain clear and you can move on to your cycling warmup or your strength training, whatever comes next.

Speaker 1:

So let's quickly talk about a dynamic warmup plus a cycling warmup. As I mentioned, I use a combination of these two warmups for the races that are short and hard or maybe overly technical, especially if the race has high intensity early on, you want to spend that five to 10 minutes doing your dynamic warmup first, then you do your sport-specific warmup. So riding your bike and using one of the warmup examples that I gave you earlier for the time crunched athletes out there, you're probably doing the math and you're thinking wait, what you want me to do? 10 minutes of a dynamic warmup and then 45 minutes with all those intervals that you talked about, and then do my workout. No, it's not what I'm saying. Okay, that combo would be for races. Okay, races in particular. Um, short, hard races.

Speaker 1:

Remember, it's all about the goal and the demands of the session, what you have time for, and then fit it in to your needs accordingly. The takeaways for the time crunched athletes out there is this doing as little as five minutes of a dynamic warmup can help you warm up better before you hop on the bike. It could even shorten the time it takes for you to fully warm up and disengage with that work life aspect and you get some cross-training out of the deal. So, five minute dynamic warmup plus five-10 minutes endurance, easy spinning, you're good to go 10-15 minutes tops. Just know you don't need to do a dynamic warm-up every day. Endurance days and when you have a little extra time, just warm-up on the bike, all good. But incorporating some sort of dynamic warmup routine a few days per week, especially before strength training, is a good option that doesn't take a lot of time and can provide a lot of benefit.

Speaker 1:

Finally, last category here no warmup. This is not ideal, but it does happen. I'd say you want to prevent that if all possible. Deal, but it does happen. I'd say you want to prevent that if all possible, but I've been there, done that and got the race t-shirt, just if that happens to you. Try not to force any attacks for the first like seven minutes and you'll be good to go. In.

Speaker 1:

All seriousness, if you're late to a race, your meeting runs long before your workout window or you're sitting in a start corral of a BWR or the Leadville 100, use a simple five-minute dynamic warm-up before the race starts to get the muscles loose, awake and ready to ride. Even something as simple as arm circles and bodyweight squats. They're better than just standing there in the cold the whole time. So, in summary, my main message is this Warmups are good. Please do them, but keep them simple. Don't overthink them or think that more is always better. A progressive intensity cycling warmup from aerobic to sprint power, with adequate recovery in between, will be the basic recipe for any length of warmup out there. Just use my rules of thumb to scale up or down as needed. Finally, try some of the dynamic warmup routines that I provided here. Mix and match to discover what works best for you, and know that you can use this before strength training races or training sessions to help you in the warmup process. So that's it.

Speaker 1:

That's our show for today. If you have any questions for me and the team here at CTS, head on over to trainratecom backslash podcast. Click on ask a training question. Fill out the form and ask whatever you wish there. Your questions get sent directly to me and I'll do my best to answer it on future episodes. Thanks again for listening and be sure to come back next week for more short and sweet actionable training tips. Thanks for joining us on the Time Crunch Cyclist podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you want even more actionable training advice, head over to trainrightcom backslash newsletter and subscribe to our free weekly publication. Each week you'll get in-depth training content that goes beyond what we cover here on the podcast. That'll help you take your training to the next level. That's all for now. Until next time, train hard, train smart, train right.

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