With regards to the prescribed warm-ups at the beginning of workouts in the plans, I noticed on someays I am not fully wamred up enough by the time the first effort rolls around (on my sweet spot plan, it is typically 5 minutes at XY prescribed watts, followed by 5 minutes in my z2 watt range). I am wondering if there is an alternative warm-up you recommend to get the legs going by the time the first plan rolls around? Or perhaps it is all just mental…
Thanks
This very typical. Normally that first interval or sweet spot effort is almost like the warm up effort. The second and efforts to follow usually go better.
You don’t want to add too much fatigue to the body before completing a workout. The lower the intensity of the effort for the workout the higher the intensity the warm up could be. You could easily handle doing a 5 minute ramp up starting in zone 2, then doing 2 minutes zone 3 and 2 minutes zone 4. Ride 5 minutes of zone 2 then start your sweet spot efforts. If doing threshold or Vo2 max workout you could try some high cadence efforts to get the blood flowing and legs pumping. Do 5 x 1 minute 105+ rpm (Zone 2/3) with 1 minute at 80 - 90 rpm between.
Those are just some suggestions.
Thanks Coach Jake - all good suggestions - and glad to hear that it is “normal”!