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Warm UpA good warm up is vital for injury prevention and maximum performance. Injury preventionMany injuries occur in tissue that has little blood flow. When tendons, ligaments, and other connective and protective and lubricating tissue are cold they are more prone to tearing. Since they have little blood flow they rely upon conductive means of warming up. This means ambient temperature and/or muscles. If it's cold outside and your muscles are cold it will take a long time to warm up the muscles and warm up the connective issue in turn. Maximum Performance.Glycolysis is the process of turning carbohydrates into ATP or energy that the muscles use to contract. It is not very efficient, but produces very large amounts of energy. A by-product is lactic acid, which gives you the burning feeling in your muscles. Your muscles perform optimally after the glycolytic cycle has been invoked. You can think of it like blowing up a balloon. The first time you blow it up it's difficult. If you let out the air and blow it up again it's much easier on a subsequent attempt. What it Looks Like in Practice.There are many different variables that effect how long it takes for an individual to warm up, but generally a 20 minute session of exercise starting in zone 1 and gradually increasing to zone 5 (above lactate threshold, the point at which your body produces lactic acid faster than it processes it) and then easing back down and doing some jumps or strides. Ideally you would stretch before the jumps. Limber muscles provide less resistance against their antagonist muscles and reduce the contraction reflex when the limits of muscle and connective tissue are approached. While not an ideal warm up, the graphic below illustrates a reasonably gradual increase in intensity on the velodrome, a couple minutes above LT, some time to drain the lactic acid from the "physio funnel", some stretching you can't see, and then some jumps and a little more easy spinning to process the lactic acid again. Your muscles should feel pumped and all energy systems primed for a maximum effort at maximum intensity after such a warm up. |
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