Thread: warm up
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Old 05-08-14, 11:53 AM
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lhbernhardt
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Location: Vancouver, Canada
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Bikes: Rodriguez Shiftless street fixie with S&S couplers, Kuwahara tandem, Trek carbon, Dolan track

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The more muscle mass you have, the longer it takes to warm up. I've known track sprinters (LOTS of muscle) who don't think they're fully warmed up unless they've had an hour of riding. When I was racing on the track, I always enjoyed warming up with the sprinters. They'd start off real slow, you were afraid you'd slide off the bankings. Then they'd gradually pick up the tempo, and the last ten laps would be screaming fast, but I'd usually drop off before the final lap.

I've noticed that if I'm climbing stairs with people who are not that fit, I'm usually out of breath first, but I can keep going longer up the stairs at the same speed despite this shortness of breath, which fairly quickly disappears. Hypertrophied muscles require more blood/O2,so it takes longer to divert the proper volume of blood vs unfit people. I think this becomes more pronounced the older you get, but I'm not a doctor (although my undergrad degree had a kinesiology minor), so what do I know?

Anyway, when I first get on my bike in the morning or after a day at work, I like to start off real slow and just gradually speed up. It usually takes at least 10 minutes. On the track, we do a highly-structured warmup of 40 laps (each lap is 200 meters of our indoor track). Laps 40 to 24 are 22 seconds (about 34 kmh), 23 to 14 are 20 sec, 13 to 5 are 18 sec, and the last five laps are pretty much a burnout. Takes a little over 10 minutes, but I'm fully warmed up for the training to follow.

Luis
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