I have been participating in Local, State and Nationals meets since 10 years ago but every time I get into a meet I am always worried about warming up too much time or just not enough and I also ask to myself how much effort to put on it.
As almost all the times during meets the pool is full for the warm ups, I do not feel that my different trainers I have had during this years had put too much attention to this issue, so I would like to ask people in this forum for your recomendations.
Alex
Parents
Former Member
Warmups are a highly individual thing. And, for a given individual, what is ideal may even vary from meet to meet and from year to year.
Your warmup should probably be guided to a significant degree by what you do during your workouts. If a given warmup routine leaves you overly tired when you do it in practice, it's probably going to do the same thing at a meet. If it doesn't warm you up enough in practice, it's probably not going to warm you up enough at a meet, either.
You should also be attuned to the fact that there are particular things that you may need to do during your warmup at a meet to get ready for competition.
For example, the pool where I do my workouts doesn't allow us to use the starting blocks, so the result is that I never get to practice my forward starts. So I make a point of getting to meets early, when all the lanes are open, so I can practice my forward starts during warmup. At this point, I'd estimate that most of the forward starts I've done in my entire life have been done at meets (either during warmup or during heats). That's not a recipe for doing great starts, but it's the best I can do at the moment.
I also make a point, if I'm going to be swimming backstroke, of trying to practice backstroke turns during warmup in a lane at the pool where I'm going to be competing. I've found that the flags look a little different in different pools, so unless I actually practice my turns in a lane at the competition pool, my timing may be off, or at the very least I may not be confident of my timing (which can be almost as bad).
If there are significant delays before or between my events, I try to do a little warmup 20 or 30 minutes before each heat, and the warmup is always specific to the event.
Warmups are a highly individual thing. And, for a given individual, what is ideal may even vary from meet to meet and from year to year.
Your warmup should probably be guided to a significant degree by what you do during your workouts. If a given warmup routine leaves you overly tired when you do it in practice, it's probably going to do the same thing at a meet. If it doesn't warm you up enough in practice, it's probably not going to warm you up enough at a meet, either.
You should also be attuned to the fact that there are particular things that you may need to do during your warmup at a meet to get ready for competition.
For example, the pool where I do my workouts doesn't allow us to use the starting blocks, so the result is that I never get to practice my forward starts. So I make a point of getting to meets early, when all the lanes are open, so I can practice my forward starts during warmup. At this point, I'd estimate that most of the forward starts I've done in my entire life have been done at meets (either during warmup or during heats). That's not a recipe for doing great starts, but it's the best I can do at the moment.
I also make a point, if I'm going to be swimming backstroke, of trying to practice backstroke turns during warmup in a lane at the pool where I'm going to be competing. I've found that the flags look a little different in different pools, so unless I actually practice my turns in a lane at the competition pool, my timing may be off, or at the very least I may not be confident of my timing (which can be almost as bad).
If there are significant delays before or between my events, I try to do a little warmup 20 or 30 minutes before each heat, and the warmup is always specific to the event.
