From the thread on tapering:
For the last few weeks, I experiment with a meet warm-up.
I've never raced that much, and haven't been to a meet in a couple years except to watch, however, the thing that always bothered me most about meets was actually trying to warm up. I found it virtually impossible to do anything useful in a lane with 13 people, five of whom are chatting at the walls, and the other seven of whom were (trying to) do something much different than I was or doing it at a much different pace. I frequently would give up after a few minutes and just get out.
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1. Use the warmup pool during the regular warmup, when most people are using the competition pool. I can even get some pace work in sometimes.
2. Unless you are really not a morning person, come early and warm up during the slow heats of the 400 IMs or 400/500 freestyle events. I was in the warmup pool for the first few heats of the men's 500 and even managed to get in some 100s pace. (Of course this was on the last day of the meet, which is often less crowded.) If you are a Gold Medal sponsor, come early and warm up and then have breakfast.
3. I often need to warm up my legs more before leg-intensive events, in which the legs seem to attract lactic acid like ******* does flies. If space is limited, try vertical kicking bursts (tip from Rich Abrahams) to get the lactic acid removal machinery started before the race.
4. About the need to use the blocks, I never need to do so for diving but usually like to get in some backstroke starts. Partly this is psychological, but I have slipped on too many starts to trust touchpads, and if I don't trust the touchpad I get tentative. If the lines for the sprint lanes are very long, sometimes I'll just SET UP for a backstroke start in the non-sprint lanes (obviously you cannot actually DO a start), just enough to convince myself that I won't slip in my preferred positions for placing hands and feet. With good pads you can pull yourself clean out of the water and almost stand up without your feet losing their grip.
5. In the name of all that is good, avoid the wamup pools during the 50s unless you absolutely have to use them. During those events you have a large number of people racing in a relatively short amount of time, and they all seem to think that a 30-sec race requires 30 min of warm down. The pool is always VERY crowded during the 50s.
6. As it does with so many things, coffee helps this too. Also keep your muscles warm.
1. Use the warmup pool during the regular warmup, when most people are using the competition pool. I can even get some pace work in sometimes.
2. Unless you are really not a morning person, come early and warm up during the slow heats of the 400 IMs or 400/500 freestyle events. I was in the warmup pool for the first few heats of the men's 500 and even managed to get in some 100s pace. (Of course this was on the last day of the meet, which is often less crowded.) If you are a Gold Medal sponsor, come early and warm up and then have breakfast.
3. I often need to warm up my legs more before leg-intensive events, in which the legs seem to attract lactic acid like ******* does flies. If space is limited, try vertical kicking bursts (tip from Rich Abrahams) to get the lactic acid removal machinery started before the race.
4. About the need to use the blocks, I never need to do so for diving but usually like to get in some backstroke starts. Partly this is psychological, but I have slipped on too many starts to trust touchpads, and if I don't trust the touchpad I get tentative. If the lines for the sprint lanes are very long, sometimes I'll just SET UP for a backstroke start in the non-sprint lanes (obviously you cannot actually DO a start), just enough to convince myself that I won't slip in my preferred positions for placing hands and feet. With good pads you can pull yourself clean out of the water and almost stand up without your feet losing their grip.
5. In the name of all that is good, avoid the wamup pools during the 50s unless you absolutely have to use them. During those events you have a large number of people racing in a relatively short amount of time, and they all seem to think that a 30-sec race requires 30 min of warm down. The pool is always VERY crowded during the 50s.
6. As it does with so many things, coffee helps this too. Also keep your muscles warm.
