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Warming up for a Time Trial: Quick Tips.

By Marty McCrory on July 6, 2009

Inspired by a 31 second improvement in my 40k TT time over the weekend, I wanted to share a few tips on how to get in a good warm-up before a time trial.

  1. The shorter the TT, the longer the warm-up. This is very important.  The high efforts needed in a short TT mean that your body has to be ready to go hard, right from the start.  A thorough warm-up helps to prepare your body for the sudden onset of lactic acid accumulation, and has other benefits (such as raising your heart rate, getting the blood flowing, and increasing your mental focus).  For a short TT, include at LEAST 30 minutes of pedaling before the race (perhaps an hour or more, depending on your speed and your personal needs).  For a longer TT, it depends on the distance.  a 100 mile TT requires minimal warm-up, but a 40k TT requires a similar warm-up to a 10 mile TT.
  2. Include several race-pace or faster accelerations. For shorter time trials, saving your aerobic endurance for the race itself is less important, so include more intervals at race pace or faster.  The intervals do not need to be very long (30-90 seconds is a good target), and include an adequate recovery interval.  For longer TTs, use fewer intervals and a slightly longer duration (perhaps 90-120 seconds).  Try to accomplish your last interval within 10-15 minutes of your start time.
  3. Use a bike trainer for your warm-up. This will allow you to concentrate on putting out the correct efforts for the duration of your warm-up.  Riding the course is always a good idea, but that should have been taken care of before race day, and not during your warm-up.  On the trainer, you can easily make any last-minute adjustments to your bike and have easy access to all of your pre-race nutrition, as well.
  4. Stay warm. If you’re TTing on a cool day, wear plenty of (but not too much) clothing during your warm-up, and consider pushing the easy parts of your warm-up a bit harder.  You want to hit the starting line with the blood and sweat already flowing.  (If it’s a hot day, the opposite applies–keep cool and take your warm-up a bit easier.)
  5. This one’s not technically related to your warm-up, but pump up your tires to the correct pressure. Most riders do not require more than 120psi in their tires.  If the road conditions are absolutely perfect, then higher pressures are MAYBE ok, depending on circumstances, but overinflated tires can actually *increase* the rolling resistance of your tire.  Use 10% more pressure in the rear tire than the front, and use 10-20% less air pressure if it’s raining or the roads are wet.  When using your race tire on the trainer, use 20% more pressure than normal.  Then, when you’re done using the trainer, deflate and then re-inflate your tire to the correct pressure.
  6. Intimidate your competition. This may include grunting a lot, panting, sweating profusely, wearing dark sunglasses on a cloudy day, keeping a stone face during your hard intervals, wearing a jersey with a skull and crossbones on it, using a disc wheel with a skull and crossbones on it and strutting around wearing your aero helmet for no reason.
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July 6th, 2009 | 99 comments
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Categories: cycling, racing, time trial

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