I need to spend time warming up before I go out riding (especially when the weathers so cold at the moment) in order to help stop my muscles getting so tight. My usual route involves a flat road for maybe 3 mins max and then a constant climb for maybe 25mins which can hurt as I’m not warmed up. But setting up the turbo before I go out on the road bike seems like a lot of hassle just for 10 – 15mins of easy spinning. I was thinking about putting my clothes on the heater or using a hot water bottle instead but not sure that will be enough.

Does anyone on here warm up before a ride and if so, what do you do? I bought a skipping rope in the hope I might use it, but as I’ve got a tight calf muscle, I’m avoiding using it at the moment.

This won’t be much help but I just crank the heater up in the car before I ride 😀

I just go slowly for a bit when I start. Maybe either go up the hill in a silly low gear, or just start in a different direction so you don’t get to the hill so early on in the ride (or even ride in circles a couple of times on the 3 minute bit you start off on).

I think the latest advice on warming up / stretching etc. is to just start whatever you’re doing straight away, but start off slowly and don’t push too hard for a bit.

Although I might think differently about warming up exercises in a couple of months – I’m moving so my commute will start right at the bottom of a silly steep hill.

Joe

I just live with it – it probably takes me an hour before I’m up to speed/strength & I’ve never found a way to fasttrack the process.

If you’re actually feeling cold before you go out it’ll take forever to get warmed up. Have a hot shower, get straight into biking kit (leave your gloves/Buff etc on the radiator beforehand) and go. It’s what I used to do on cold commutes as the distance was never far enough for me to get warmed up by the time I arrived at work.

HTH

lower gear to start with.
spin dont push.

if its steep enough to need to push hard, find another hill…..

You can get muscle rubs for use before exercise which will warm up the muscle tissue. Having said that, can’t advise product names or where from but a quick search should locate.

You can get muscle rubs for use before exercise which will warm up the muscle tissue. Having said that, can’t advise product names or where from but a quick search should locate.

Embrocation cream. This stuff:
http://www.cyclexpress.co.uk/categories/Fitness_Accessories/Massage_and_Embrocation.aspx
Sort of milder version of Deep Heat. I’m allergic to that stuff though. My masseur used it once on me (I’d neglected to tell her I was allergic) and I’ve never woken up from a massage induced drowsy state so quickly!

spin like crazy, start in a lowest gear at your usual cadence, and add 10 to it each minute untill you cant spin any quicker, then begin riding properly.

It get your heart rate right upto the max and wont put high loads in the muscles, and gets the blod pumping through them quicker than they can use it so everything stays oxygenated.

Just stretch out muscles as and when they feel tight, saves spending 20 minutes at the roadside doign them all. Just remember to do them at the end after cooling down.

Keep a low gear and get those legs moving, if necessary choose a longer way round to warm up. You should be warmed up after 10mins, if not it may be a fitness issue unfortunately. Takes me a good 15 mins to warm up:(

I don’t ‘warm up’ before a ride but in winter I always warm my outer clothes before putting them on – jacket, gloves, shoes, buff. I do try to take it easy for the 1st 10 minutes of most rides apart from my commute home as from the off its a race to get clear of cars, get through the lights, etc.

Forget embrication, all it does is heat up the skin, if it actually heated up the muscles (which it doesn’t) you would be in real trouble. Total waste of money and they stink.

You can get muscle rubs for use before exercise which will warm up the muscle tissue.

Sounds like embrocation. Some swear by it (especially the old school road boys), others claim it draws the oxygenated glood to the skin and away from the muscle.

The reality is that a warm up is very dependent on what you want to do once you get going. You can sit on the tubo for a bit – I know people who do that before road rides. Or you can just accept that you need to go slowly, slowly and that the hill will be a little painful. The key is not to let the lactate start flowing too early – keep the gear and speed really low, and only sit in the saddle on the climb.

I alwasy leave my commuting clothes on a radiator. It just feels nicer climbing into warm clothes before heading out doors. I have no doubt that this makes little difference to my performance, but it feels nice..!

don’t really suffer from muscle probs that early on, but that might be a function of really suffering from respiratory probs instead.

From start up it normally takes me 20-30 mins before I really feel I’m actually processing the oxygen properly. I’m mildly asthmatic and in the cold particularly the air seems to hit the lungs and they just clam up, leaving me very short of breath very quickly; as a result the heart pumps harder to compensate and even relatively easy hills / efforts really work me over.

After a few minutes like this things ease up and then I’m reasonably good for the rest of the ride unless there ais a long stop on it, when I need to start slowly again.

As a result i take it as easy as poss for the first 20 mins which i guess in turn allows muscles to warm up too.

It’s a real pain when doing a 24 hour race because you don’t really want to do a warm up before each lap as you might for a short course race. So Mayhem 08, where you circuited the campsite for 2 mins and then went up the biggest climb on the course truly worked me over to the point of being dizzy / nearly blacking out by the time you reached that little stream crossing!!

I get really tight thigh/arse muscles from too much stretching a few months back. Deep HEAT and gentle stretches do seem to help. Tie your laces up whilst standing up.

Hot shower works, as Crazylegs says. Lots of climbers I knew had a hot shower before training on the climbing wall rather than doing stretches from cold.

i’ll have a go at the spinning in an easy gear to help me warm up, as well as hot shower and clothes on a heater. i think my problem is i just like to hit the climb hard and am not ready for it – plus its often into a head wind which makes it worse. a longer flat stretch would be good, but there’s not really anyhting that doesn’t have traffic lights so defeats the purpose with stopping and starting. i don’t have any serious problems/injuries, but i’m aware my muscles feel tight and i feel totally beaten up after a sports massage to loosen them last night. Part of the tightness is probably also due to riding for 3 hours in the cold in more or less the one position as well (and yes, i stretch after i finish riding) and feeling cold a lot in general.

Certainly never have done and can’t say I’ve had problems.