The Complete Guide to Off-Skates Warm Ups for Roller Derby
If you want to perform at your highest, you need to warm up.
There’s lots of research, and even more bro science, and plenty of completely wrong information out there. There is very little, if any specifically for roller derby.
In this article, I’ll attempt to provide some clarity on the subject and propose some warm up principles that you can apply specifically to roller derby.
Goals of a warm up
Research shows that warming up improves individual muscle power output while also improving sports performance both individually and as a team. Recent meta-analyses highlighted several areas that warming up affected, which ultimately lead to improved performance.
Getting your head into the game
Research shows that something as simple as psyching yourself up literally improves muscle force production. It also shows that mental rehearsal is proven to improve a team's performance. When researchers looked for a common thread between Olympic champions, regardless of their sport, they found one common distinguishing characteristic: consistent mental performance strategies.
We need to literally get warmer
Muscles produce heat as they contract. As we go through the warm up, muscle activity and local temperature increases. Our neurological, muscular and biochemical systems can all function better in warmer temperatures. There is a direct correlation between muscle temperature and its force production. For every 1 deg C temperature increase, power improves by 2-5%.
Research shows temperature rapidly increases during exertion, before plateauing at 2-3 degrees warmer after 10-20 minutes. This means we can improve our force production by as much as 15 per cent, if we warm up enough.
We need to prime our energy systems
Our body has several overlapping energy systems.
Each system requires a different chemical pathway to turn nutrients in our body into usable energy and then to eliminate the specific waste byproducts. By warming up, we cycle through these systems and their chemical pathways. This primes them for more efficient operation when we need them in the game.
We need to mobilize our joints to reduce injury and improve performance
As we warm up, fluid is drawn into our joint capsules, bringing with them lubrication and nutrition, reducing potential wear on the articular surfaces of bones, and increasing fluid pressure to help absorb and transfer forces moving into and across a joint.
Additionally, muscles surrounding our joints become more efficient in the movements and for production. We practice specific movement patterns that we will encounter on the track. Which research shows reduces the overall chance of injury by as much as 10 per cent.
Not only does mobilization reduce the risk of injury, research also shows that doing so improves muscle force production.
We need to do things maximum effort, but in a controlled way
In order to perform at our highest, our neurological and muscular systems need to be fire at maximal effort and with maximum coordination. Research shows short bouts of high effort activities primes us to do the same movement easier, and more efficiently for a short period of time. We potentiate the movement pattern.
Research shows this potentiation lasts between 6-20 minutes following the high effort bouts of activity. As well, certain movements show greater potentiation than others. If we warm up using these specific movements and with correct timing we can improve our performance.
We want to encourage specific movement patterns
The above goals are useful when we talk about generally warming up, irrespective of what sport we’re doing. However research shows that warming up sport-speicfic movements improve performance in that sport.
What that means in practice is that through each phase of our warm up, we want to be doing movements that are applicable to roller derby. That way we don’t have to use any more time we need to either get warm enough, and practice derby related movements.
We need t to be smart with our time
Finally, we’re here to play a game, not waste time warming up. And we also want to avoid doing too much. Research shows anything less than 10 minutes is virtually pointless, and anything above 20 minutes starts causing too much fatigue and becomes detrimental again.
When warm ups are on the shorter side, research also shows that athletes will begin to feel like they aren’t warming up enough, even if physiologically they have achieved all the above stated goals.
To me that means 15 minutes is the ideal time. It allows most people to feel like they got a long enough warm up, ensures almost everyone is at peak performance temperature, and isn’t so long than anyone should be fatigued. It also allows ease of facilitation, whether you’re a skater, coach or other volunteer leading the warm up. And lastly, it gives you a nice round number to plan your game day schedule around.