Warm-up

Kurt Godel

There's an article on ST attributting heart attack deaths in Tri (1/75,000 chance, vs. 1/100,000 in a marathon apparently), to people not warming up before the race, instead going for broke during the scramble of the initial part of the swim.

What's a good warm-up routine for a Triathlete?

shotgunmcos

Generally firing up the larger muscles gradually is a good rule of thumb. Hamstrings notoriously go in sprinters for this very reason. A sudden maximal effort engaging large muscles like glutes, hams, quads is like starting every part of the machine at once. If any of those parts is cold, strained or weakened it will do well to get through such a surge of energy.

For Triathlon the start of the swim tends to be ferocious. Not only swimming hard but climbing over bodies etc... You will see a lot of the Pros warming their shoulders up with a band, swimging, stretching their arms and doing a few minutes in the water with a few bursts

For longer distance like HIM/IM you may not bother warming up the legs as the swim is longer and the bike is at a more controlled effort to warm up to it.

For a sprint or Olympic Distance, a short 5-10 min run with a few 10-20 sec bursts. Like wise on the Bike. Some dynamic exercises to engage the larger muscles like flick kicks, lunges etc.. Using this time to focus on your race plan is good too rather than jogging aimlessly and chatting to the buddy

Apart from that rolling your wrists, ankles, knees and neck to loosen the joints

sconhome

Thats a long article but very good read about a tragic subject.

Not to diminish the subject or disrespect anyone who has lost their life or loved ones. A couple of things that struck me while reading the piece, is that as a competitor you are also reassuring the RD that you are fit, healthy and capable of racing the event you have entered. This point is not made in the article and is a matter of personal responsibility too.

Secondly, I would like statistics to back this up, but the trend is for many people to take up triathlon later in life as an alternative to years of team sports etc. This would raise the age profile and naturally lead to a higher risk of accidental death through heart failure. Similar in the way golf would have a high risk factor of heart attacks.

Re warmup its all down to the time you have. Spin your legs out some of the bike course, some strides and stretches to open your hips, loosen quads, hamstrings, ankles. Do a dry swim warm up of stretches to loosen the arms and shoulders. If you can get in the water; run water in your face, trickle water into the wetsuit, adjust and do a swim warmup before the start.

RacoonQueen

Surely by the time you get into your wetsuit, queue up to get into the water, get into the cold water and then get going you've lost all benefits of the 'warm up'?