Workout (or race) Ready
Effective Warm-ups
Warming up for a hard session is important, because it ensures you are ready to perform as soon as the key portion of a workout begins. The length of time, chosen movements and intensity of a warm-up is dictated by the workout that follows. In general, a warm-up should be gradual and begin with a broad range of movements, then build in intensity and specificity. By the end of the warm-up, the body is warm, loose and primed for the main work of a training session. The following outlines how to design a workout for a given training session.
Progression
In general, a warm-up should include a progression which means the work develops as the warm-up continues. The body is allowed to move through a range of intensities in a gradual way, allowing the body to warm up, muscles to loosen, breathing rate to increase and the nervous system to engage. Warm-ups help you focus and allow you to become fully absorbed in the training session.
This progression varies according to the workout. For a long run, a simple progression from an easy pace to endurance pace over the course of 20 or 30 minutes is effective. However, this warm-up is inadequate for running track intervals or a hard swim session. For technical and high-intensity training, priming with harder efforts, mobility, technique and coordination improves performance from the first interval and through the set.
Broad to Specific
A gradual progression from easy to moderate intensity is a broad warmup. For technique and higher intensity work, a more specific warm-up is more effective. For example, in a swim warm-up, you may start with 400 metres of your choice swimming, which is a broad warm-up. After that initial waking up of the body, shifting to specific work like technical skills or a short set of intense 50-metre intervals increases the specificity of the warm-up. The skills and the level of intensity in the warm-up should match the following workout. If the main set is 25-metre sprint repeats, the warm-up should include some amount of intensity at sprint effort and technical drills to reinforce sprinting mechanics. An intense running warm-up should always start at a gentle pace and progress to higher intensity. Once the body is warmed up, some coordination, mobility and muscle activation drills shift the warm-up to specific running movements. The warm-up should finish with short building efforts to goal training intensity, priming the engine for the main intervals.