Warm up w/ deep heat

Azhar

Hello folks. I finally done the 30mile round trip a couple times to work on my days off, to try and get used to the route, and within a mile I have to tackle a major climb with another climb about 2 miles away. These 2 hills I always struggle because of the lack of warm up time to go up it quickly.

I was wondering if any one uses deep heat that they rub on their legs to get the muscles to the blood immediately and therefore 'warmed up'. I'm talking about the deep heat one uses for muscular aches and pains. I haven't tried it myself yet but I thought I'd ask the competent people of bikeradar for some advice. so...yea..is it a good idea? I have seen some warm up creams on wiggle but unsure if they're similar to deep heat and if they are maybe they're not as intense as deep heat.

I appreciate any advice on this.

Calpol

I very much doubt that that will do any good. In my experience that stuff warms up your skin and not deep into your muscle tissue. I have a similar issue, living in a slight valley and being faced with a couple of gnarly little climbs early in a ride. It takes me about 5 miles to warm up I reckon so aside from looping around for a bit before you attempt the hills there isnt a lot you can do. I expect the fitter I get the faster I might get loose so for the meantime I just ride and struggle.

ShutUpLegs

How does this warm up your cardiovascular system :?:

ToeKnee

ShutUpLegs wrote:

How does this warm up your cardiovascular system :?:

Inhale it? Please don't try this at home. :!:

andyeb

Well done on making the round trip - great to hear you are making progress.

As others have alluded to, warming up is just as much about getting your cardio system going as it is warming muscles up. As you get warmed up and your metabolic rate gets going, your liver starts to be able to break down it's internal glycogen stores to create energy. If you go off to hard too fast too soon, you quickly exhaust the glycogen stores in your muscles and you bonk.

I generally find it takes me around 10 miles to get properly warmed up - see my recent post "Long warmup times"; seems I'm not alone/not unusual in this regard.

keef66

I live halfway up a hill, so if my chosen route takes me left out of the drive, my warmup on the flat is about 3 seconds. I have to drop into a suitably low gear and spin my way up if I'm to avoid straining anything. Mind you, by the time I get to the top I generally feel as if my cardiovascular system is up and running.
If I turn right and go down hill then flat, it takes me several miles to feel properly warmed up.

smidsy

keef66 wrote:

I live halfway up a hill,.

No you don't - you live in Suffolk :-)

t.m.h.n.e.t

Won't work,doesn't warm deep enough nor does it have any bearing on your CV system which is more important.

Wiggle link

keef66

smidsy wrote:

keef66 wrote:

I live halfway up a hill,.

No you don't - you live in Suffolk :-)

I didn't say it was a big hill!

smidsy

keef66 wrote:

I didn't say it was a big hill!

Fair one

I have a similar issue. Where i live it is effectively like being in the bottom of a bowl. I have 3 routes out but all of them are up hill within meters of leaving home.

For me it seems to help if I take it real easy for the first 15 mins and then ramp up the effort after that until I reach my normal cruising speed.

Similarly I use the last 15 mins as a time to ramp down the effort so I am not getting back and stopping dead from full effort.

No science in my approach but seems to work ok

dav3e

Having done a lot of running prior to cycling, I used 'muscle rub' for injury prevention primarily on hamstrings + calves in the colder conditions. I suppose you could argue as to whether or not it was effective, or whether it was just a placebo effect, but I have never felt the need to use it for cycling.

thefd

keef66 wrote:

I live halfway up a hill, so if my chosen route takes me left out of the drive, my warmup on the flat is about 3 seconds. I have to drop into a suitably low gear and spin my way up if I'm to avoid straining anything. Mind you, by the time I get to the top I generally feel as if my cardiovascular system is up and running.
If I turn right and go down hill then flat, it takes me several miles to feel properly warmed up.

I would hate coming down a hill and having to stop 1/2 way down cause of my house... Does it annoy you?

keef66

The alternative of screaming past the house then turning round and toiling back up the hill would I think be even more annoying...

Bobbinogs

dav3e wrote:

Having done a lot of running prior to cycling, I used 'muscle rub' for injury prevention primarily on hamstrings + calves in the colder conditions. I suppose you could argue as to whether or not it was effective, or whether it was just a placebo effect, but I have never felt the need to use it for cycling.

I am in a similar position in that I just got used to regularly using muscle rub in my footy days. I know that it doesn't warm the muscles up as effectvely as a proper dynamic warm up but it does keep one's legs feeling warm for the first half hour of activity so it can't be all bad. Placebo or not, I use Deep Heat for most rides, I kind of like the smell :shock:

bompington

I live at the top of a hill (120m ascent if you need to quantify it;-)) and I reckon that it is actually a lot worse, especially in cold weather, having to descend for the first few minutes of a ride - after a while I found a route that involves minimal descent followed by a gentle climb for 5 minutes or so, I find this much less painful.
Unless you have horrendously high gears and/or you have to start on a really steep hill, just start gently.

Azhar

thanks for the input people. i was jsut thinking that even though it'll bring the blood to the skin faster that once i start cycling i can get 'warmed up' in half the time if i didnt use deep heat. but i suppose i can use the 2 hills close to me as warm up and set me up for the rest of the jpourney. sounds like deep heat aint the way forward.
i was also thinking along the lines of cheating the brain/body in make sure enough energy is released for me to cycle as fast as possible. i was reading in another post on bikeradar, cant rmember wear, one person mentioned that swilling a drink in your mouth, i think something like orange juice (or summat), fools the brain of imminent intake of carbohydrates and therefore releases glycogen from the liver giving an extra boost in performance. thanks again for the advice.

lemon63

I tend to believe that the benefit you get from a muscle rub is not so much the warming effect of what's in the cream but from the massaging your muscles get from rubbing it in, so basically a pre-ride leg massage with ordinary moisturising cream would be just as effective.