I am curious to hear what people do to warm up for their workouts and how it varies between swimming, biking and running. I do some dynamic stretching and muscle activation stuff before every workout, but I mostly do the same few things all the time and I am looking for some more variety so I am curious to hear what others do.
Note, I am not asking about your warm up during the first few minutes of your workout. Rather, what do you do before getting on the bike, starting to run, or jumping in the pool.
Rolling out of bed and putting in my contacts is about the extent of my warmup. My coach has suggested 5-10 mins of dynamic stretches before running, but I don’t often do them.
If swimming, stare at water from the deck for a few minutes. Walk back and forth between the edge of the water and my swim bag for a few more minutes. Talk to myself about how the water won’t be that cold. Then, get in and go.
For workouts, nothing particular other than just taking it easy for the first 15-20 minutes before doing any really hard efforts. If it is not an interval workout, I’m usually ready to go after 5 minutes of easy work.
For bike races which often start out with hard efforts right from the gun, I have started doing a very specific power target based warmup routine that lasts around 30 minutes and it seems to really help. Nothing magic but having a specific plan just makes sure I actually get warmed up!
I don’t do any stretches before exercise and leave them for before bed.
I like cycling on rollers for as much warm-up as possible, including running. There is less impact than jogging and it can be done before leaving the house inappropriately (for temperature) dressed. For outdoor cycling you also don’t need to change wheels or anything.
For swimming: I never drive there so am warm already and just get going.
5-15 minutes of (depending on sport) hip mobility and activation exercises (You Tube it for examples), or upper body focus involving trunk/shoulders/neck if swimming. If nordic skiing I combine both what I do for swimming & running. On the bike I typically just start out slow & spin-build, include some 1-legged drills and sit/stand/sit & various gears, but do loosen up the neck/shoulders first (you can get pretty tense just holding the handlebar position for long periods). The older I’ve gotten, the more imperative I’ve found a solid warm up is to injury prevention. Definitely a cool down after & some core work post workout. Even if you have to cut the workout a little short to do the warm up, it is worth it, because you’ll cut your season short at some point from injury without it.
I am curious to hear what people do to warm up for their workouts and how it varies between swimming, biking and running. I do some dynamic stretching and muscle activation stuff before every workout, but I mostly do the same few things all the time and I am looking for some more variety so I am curious to hear what others do.
Note, I am not asking about your warm up during the first few minutes of your workout. Rather, what do you do before getting on the bike, starting to run, or jumping in the pool.
Thanks!
I will frequently sit in the boots, specifically for running and usually on a lower setting than I would for recovery. Anyone that has used boots knows how much the body tissue heats up in the boots, so I find it a nice way to both get blood flowing but also raise the core temp of the legs a bit.
I also do a lot of easy spinning just getting around ton which helps keep things a bit more loose, warm, and ready to go.
If swimming, stare at water from the deck for a few minutes. Walk back and forth between the edge of the water and my swim bag for a few more minutes. Talk to myself about how the water won’t be that cold. Then, get in and go.
“…okay…on the NEXT top…you’re for sure jumping in…”
I’m 47, so I may be more prone to injury than the average STer and my approach may be more valuable:
Run: Walk the dog a mile. Regardless of the run workout (speed, recovery, or long), begin with an easy jog. I used to stretch beforehand, but this didn’t reduce injury.
Bike: Go easy for a couple of miles (which is how far it is to get out of town anyway), but there’s not as much muscle tearing on the bike as the run, so I’m not too concerned with bike warmup.
Swim:
5 x 100 on 2:00 (my threshold pace is 1:13) my first 100 will be in the 1:18-20 range and will descent to about 1:16 by the time I finish the 5th 100. I’ll sometimes use a tempo trainer and start at 1:00 (1 beep per second) and drop to about :90 or :87 by the end.
Bike:
a typical warmup for most of my workouts is: 10 min easy .50 IF (150W) then 5 min 200W, 5 min 215, 5 min 230W (just under my 70.3 pace), 5 min 150w then go to work
Run:
5 min walk on the treadmill @ 7% to get the muscles firing then go outside or continue on treadmill depending on the plan for the day. For a speed session I warm up starting at a really easy pace and build to about marathon pace during the following 20 minutes.
I’m sort of boring. To warm up for a run, I bike 5 miles or so. To warm up for the bike, I just go easy for the first 15 minutes. To warm up for the swim, I go home and go back to bed where it’s warm.
Rolling out of bed and putting in my contacts is about the extent of my warmup. My coach has suggested 5-10 mins of dynamic stretches before running, but I don’t often do them.
Me too. I ease into it running / cycling but that’s about it. Nothing special.
For every run, I do about 3-4 minutes of muscular activation and dynamic warmup. Then I run the first mile easy. I never believe in this stuff and decided one day to try it out, injury free since then with very few issues popping up. This is very atypical for me.
I am surprised people do not do more dynamic stretching and activation stuff. I have not been injury prone, but when I started doing them, I definitely felt better in workouts when I did warm ups first so just kept doing them.
Run = jog a half mile , do a little balistic stretching then hit it.
Gym = 5-10 min on the rower
Swim= loosen up with balistics for a min or two then 200 warm up
Bike = what ever TR tells me to do.
Pretty well for all sports my go to warmup is 10 min on the spin/gym bike or 10 min on my actual bike. 6 min of really easy floundering around then 4x30 second hard, 30 second easy (hard is a loose term, it’s more of a build). Then if I am on the bike I can launch into the workout. If I am going swimming or running some range of motion stretching. If I can’t get on a bike and it is just a warmup in the pool, then 10 min of pretty well the same…6 min easy, 4x30s hard 30s easy. But my preference is to warmup on the bike where it is non weight bearing and no twisting or jarring or anything. Just get the blood flowing
If swimming, stare at water from the deck for a few minutes. Walk back and forth between the edge of the water and my swim bag for a few more minutes. Talk to myself about how the water won’t be that cold. Then, get in and go.
Jump in. Feet first if you are worried about belly flopping. But jump in. Much better than squeeing in gradually because that does feel cold, even though realistically the “cold” pool water is high 70s.
I am curious to hear what people do to warm up for their workouts and how it varies between swimming, biking and running. I do some dynamic stretching and muscle activation stuff before every workout, but I mostly do the same few things all the time and I am looking for some more variety so I am curious to hear what others do.
Note, I am not asking about your warm up during the first few minutes of your workout. Rather, what do you do before getting on the bike, starting to run, or jumping in the pool.
Thanks!