So, you’ve spent the winter on your trainer and feel ready to hit the roads, you’ve got a few races coming up and you think that all of your hard work over the winter is really going to pay dividends. Excellent, but don’t pack your trainer away just yet, you’re going to be needing it…
I think my inner response to that would be: “Why? I’ve spent enough time on my trainer, I love it but I just want to get out racing.”
The thing is before every race that comes up, even before training rides out on the roads it is really important that you warm up.
If you’re going to be in a race that starts off at full pace and doesn’t let up until the finish line then being properly warmed up is going to make the difference between being competitive or not. If your body isn’t in the perfect position to deal with the rigours of racing you’re going to find yourself languishing at the back very quickly.
If you have been seriously training over the winter then there is no chance that a warm up is going to make you exhausted and it is guaranteed that you will perform better for it during the race.
You could warm up by cycling around the roads near where you are due to race or just warm up as part of your training run. Using a turbo trainer to warm up can however help with a few things:
- Punctures – you don’t want to be fixing a puncture just before a race
- Accidents – if you’ve made it to the race you don’t want to be hit by a car or damage your bike in a pothole when warming up. Don’t laugh, it really happens.
- Timing – what if you misjudge the length of time it’s going to take you to warm up and miss the start of the race. Again, don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes…
So make sure that all that training over the summer isn’t wasted just because you think it won’t do you any harm to not warm up once or twice.
Warming up on your trainer means you can do so in a controlled environment, and dependnign on your trainer you cane ven follow a strict pre-planned regime so that you’re body is ready to win.
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