I would have thought that the
role of the warm-up had been carefully studied a long time ago but there we learn
that it is nothing of the kind. It took
forty years to put the athleticism itself under the microscope and to perfect
our understanding. Surely the warm up is integral and is used by everyone. So why is it not well studied?
Obviously this is now going to be
remedied.
The average duffer is not going
to sweat this, but performance athletes learn to give everything to the task at
hand and the edge is easily that fine. I
am sure we will now see a few more records challenged.
When it comes to warm-up less is more for athletes
by Staff Writers
"If you watch sprinters,
short distance speed skaters or cyclists before their race, they will often
warm-up for one to two hours, including several brief bouts of high intensity
exercise. From an exercise physiology point of view, it seemed like it might be
pretty tiring."
Many coaches and physiologists believe that a longer warm up provides
an increase in muscle temperature, acceleration of oxygen uptake kinetics,
increased anaerobic metabolism and a process called postactivation potentiation
of the muscles. However, very few studies have studied if warm ups has a
detrimental effect on performance.
As it turns out, the warm-up is one of the more contentious issues in
high-performance sport. Different coaches have different theories and not a lot
of quality research has been done to identify the optimal warm-up.
Tomaras' study, published recently
in the prestigious Journal of Applied Physiology suggests that at the very
least, athletes may want to lower the intensity and reduce the amount of time
that they warm up.
"Our study compared a standard warm-up, with what we termed an
experimental warm-up," explains Tomaras. "We interviewed a number of
coaches and athletes to come up with the traditional warm-up."
The experiment involved high performance sprint cyclists performing a
traditional warm-up lasting about 50 minutes with a graduated intensity that
ranged from 60 to 95 per cent of maximal heart rate before ending with several
all-out sprints.
The experimental warm-up was much shorter at about 15 minutes, and was
performed at a lower intensity, ending with just a single sprint. The
researchers conducted a number of tests following each warm-up to accurately
measure the athlete's power output and fatigue.
"What we found, was that the shorter warm-up resulted in significantly
less muscle fatigue and a peak power output that was 6.2 per cent higher.
This represents a substantial improvement for an elite athlete,"
says Tomaras. "On the basis of this study I would suggest that sprint
athletes should start thinking about adopting a shorter and less strenuous warm
up for better performance."
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