No Warmup Before Race
 

Due to stupidity on my part, I arrived late to a race and had to skip my warmup.

My average power was 20% below that of my most recent training ride of similar intensity, longer distance, and less adrenaline.

Oops.

Thats exactly why i ride the morning of a race, or the night before if its a morning road race. I never need a warm-up after those rides so if i dont get a chance to spin its not a big deal. Very useful for big city night crits with no place to warmup, or if it's raining or something.

Although I'm pretty adamant about doing 15-60 minutes the day before a race, for day of the race it's not very important. In some of my best ever races I've done almost zero warm up, literally measured in the seconds it took to ride from registration to the start line (5 to 50 meters, to be generous).

I've done warm ups as well and didn't see a big difference in my race performance.

The exception would be particularly technical courses, where I'd be repeating massive efforts from the start. Even those I find that just rolling around a bit (15-30 min) was all I needed. Kitting up and going hasn't worked for me in those races.

For me it's most important to know that I'm ready to race. Number pinned, shoes good, kit good, bike ready, bottle/s ready, etc. If I'm ready to race then I can relax a bit.

I never felt I got much benefit from the warmup, either. I figured it was due to being a fast-twitch guy. I dunno.

I need a decent warm up. Usually, rolling around easy for 30 min. or so with a couple of short hard jumps works, but lately, I've been trying a more structured warm up, which seems to be working out ok.

That said, I did not get a warm up before my Kilo on Friday night. The rain threw off the schedule, and they ended up rushing things, so I went into that fairly cold. It was a freaking disaster, that more-so because I was just not ready and rushing to get to the start line than not having a good warm up.

I ride to work (18 miles) on the morning of the race. Then from work I ride over to the race (about 4.5 miles) and consider that a warmup for me.

Last race I rode a steady state lap around the track, but still had to wait another 30 minutes before my race.

I'm not sure if a "proper" warmup will work for me. I guess being new to cycling and racing I'd be afraid of wasting too much energy. Plus, I'm old and am not close to winning or contesting anything so perhaps it doesn't mean as much for me. I get nervous at races still so having to think about a warmup protocol might be much for me.

For me performance is terrible if there's no warm up, and the longer the warm up the better I race. Ideally 45 minutes.

I much prefer a real warmup, like steady trainer or roller effort where you break a sweat and get capillaries open.

I barely ever have the time or energy for a real warmup.

I rarely do a full on warmup with any sort of structure. Only before TT's really. Otherwise I tend to just roll around for 15-20 mins if I have time, take a couple of little digs, and call it done. I've started races with no warm up plenty of times. It's only bad if someone makes it hard from the gun, otherwise I'm OK.

nah dude, you do you.

I don't smoke, anyway. Edibles - better control of dose and saves the lungs.

is that a hybrid strain

I prefer at least 20 minutes on the trainer, mostly steady with a couple of hard jumps. But oddly enough, my best placings lately have been when I was running late and had no warm up at all. Got 4th at San Rafael and still had my frame pump and saddle bag attached.

I prefer to warm up for about 20 minutes with a few hard efforts thrown in. If I don't warm up my legs will feel dead in 10-15 mins and by the time I work through that (~20mins) I'm usually out the back. Warming up gets me beyond that point so my performance doesn't suffer due to dead legs.

I'm mixed depending on the type of race but lean more towards warming up as I get older. Crits longer with a few hard efforts and RR I spin around with a few pops just in case. I learned my lesson in my first 1/2/3 race as a newly minted 3, the Modesto RR, which is essentially a 75 mi crit. We got there late and my teammate convinced me that it was a RR so no need to warm up. We were at 32 mph 3 min into the race. That hurt, so now I always try to do something.

Longer easy start road race? Just roll around a bit.

TT's? I've got a program. 10 minutes easy spinning. 10 minutes with a ladder (2minute steps usually about 20W per step) up to just about target wattage.(ie Start at 220 build to 320) Bring it back down a bit then spin easy to finish off the time. Works well on my rollers because I'm usually spinning like mad to get that top power and it's one gear per 20W up until just about the end.

Crits or RR's that start hard? Ride to the race if its an option or spin on roller til you feel good, short ladder like above but not all the way up. Then throw in a few 20-30s bursts of high rpm and I'm good to go.

^^what he said.

I rarely have time for much of a warmup, and don't feel a need for long warm-ups anyway. State TT was weekend before last, and I think I did about 8-10 minutes. I find a few minutes of easy spinning followed by a few short bursts of high-cadence is enough, maybe a really short/quick 'ladder' up to threshold power if I think/know the event is going to start with a hard effort. Only time I might go a little bit longer is before a winter race when I'm actually cold.

Velonews Fast Talk podcast did an episode about warmups a year or so ago. Their takeaway based on the science was that the most effect warmups are short and occur immediately before the event (eg minutes, not half hour or longer), and also that long warmups are more likely to just add fatigue. Then they went wish-washy as said it's all a matter of personal preference so just do what feels right to you.

That's exactly what happened to me. And it was a crit.

I get bored warming up, but if my legs feel a bit sluggish from a hard ride the day before or from too much of nothing, 4 or 5 minutes near threshold helps get the initial hurt out.