Open this photo in gallery: The peleton cycles in the ascent of Forcellino Di Bianzano, near Lago di Endine lake, during the 118th edition of the Giro di Lombardia cycling race on Oct. 12.MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP/Getty Images A few years ago, Japanese sports scientists tested an unorthodox pre-workout warm-up routine. They had their volunteers sit in […]
The peleton cycles in the ascent of Forcellino Di Bianzano, near Lago di Endine lake, during the 118th edition of the Giro di Lombardia cycling race on Oct. 12.MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP/Getty Images
A few years ago, Japanese sports scientists tested an unorthodox pre-workout warm-up routine. They had their volunteers sit in a warm bath for 10 minutes.
It should have worked. After all, the goal of a warm-up is to raise your body temperature, which in turn speeds up metabolism and nerve signals and makes your muscles and tendons more supple. The bath did all these things, but it failed to improve performance.
A recent study from researchers in Italy, published in the journal Psychology of Sport & Exercise, offers a tantalizing clue about what’s missing from the warm-up-in-a-tub approach, and helps explain why previous warm-up research has produced a mess of conflicting and mostly underwhelming results. The secret ingredient, the Italian study suggests, is in the mind rather than the muscles.
Virtually all athletes swear by the importance of warming up before any challenging or intense workout, to maximize performance and minimize risk of injury. But there’s less agreement on what that warm-up should look like.
The most common form of warm-up in recent years involves three stages: sustained low-intensity exercise; dynamic mobility exercises that move your joints through the expected range of motion; and brief spurts of high intensity. The sequence for a runner would be jog, stretch, sprint.
There’s a lot of science that goes into each of these stages and researchers have attempted to find the optimal mix of activities to maximize effects like “postactivation potentiation”– a temporary strength boost that follows intense muscle contractions – while minimizing fatigue.
But in head-to-head tests under controlled conditions, there’s generally little or to no difference between various routines. Worse, some studies find that even the best-designed warm-up routines don’t improve performance compared to doing no warm-up at all.
The new study, led by Vittoria Ferrando of the University of Genoa, is an exception to this pattern. The researchers’ modified warm-up protocol increased time to exhaustion in a running test by a whopping 25 per cent. The key? They told their volunteers that the warm-up would improve performance.
The full protocol compared three different warm-up conditions. One involved a generic three-stage warm-up as described above. The second used a modified three-stage protocol called FIFA11+, which incorporates strength and movement exercises designed to reduce soccer injuries. It didn’t have an effect on running performance compared to the generic warm-up. The third also used the FIFA11+ warm-up, along with the “verbal suggestion” that these new exercises would boost performance – which they then did.
Of course, the placebo effect is not a new or surprising phenomenon. But the results help reconcile the longstanding disconnect between what athletes say about the importance of their warm-up and what researchers have been able to demonstrate in the lab.
The subtle effects of body temperature on muscle function are real and may have some marginal effects on performance in some situations. More importantly, warmed-up muscles really do seem to be less susceptible to injury. Studies have found that the FIFA11+ routine reduces soccer injuries by about 30 per cent.
Other benefits are harder to quantify, though. The warm-up is an opportunity to get in the right headspace – to put aside the stresses of the day and prepare for the task ahead. It’s also a soothing, familiar ritual.
Ferrando’s results suggest two important takeaways. The first is that if you have a warm-up routine that makes you feel good and fulfills the basic goal of raising your temperature and moving your muscles, you should stick with it. You don’t need to worry that a longer, faster or more yogic routine might make you better. Any differences are likely trivial.
The second takeaway, though, is that you needn’t be too attached to your warm-up routine. If you’re running late, missing some crucial gear, or working out with a group that warms up differently, don’t sweat the details. They only matter if you think they do.
Alex Hutchinson is the author of the forthcoming book The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map.
