Warm-Up Strategies for Sport and Exercise: Mechanisms and Applications
Key Results
Passive and active warm-ups alike can produce thermal, metabolic, neural and psychological effects — among them more anaerobic metabolism, faster oxygen-uptake kinetics and post-activation potentiation
Passive warm-up can lift body temperature while leaving energy substrate stores intact; few use it alone, but passive warming to hold core and muscle temperature through the transition phase (from the end of the warm-up to the start of the event) is becoming more popular
Active warm-up induces greater metabolic changes → greater preparedness for the task
Until recently the evidence for pre-competition warm-ups was modest (few participants, physiology rather than performance measured); practical constraints (equipment access, length of the marshalling phase) were overlooked, so strategies developed by trial and error
The review sets out the physiological mechanisms and gives warm-up design recommendations for specific individual and team sports
The full text organises the recommended structure as a progressive Raise → Activate/Mobilise → Potentiate sequence (full text; not checked against the abstract — the abstract does not name RAMP)
Mechanism
Temperature elevation, faster VO2 kinetics, increased anaerobic metabolism, neural potentiation (PAP) and psychological readiness, produced mostly by active exercise; passive heat holds the temperature component through a delay without costing substrate.
Practical Application
McGowan et al. 2015 (Sports Medicine): both active and passive warm-up evoke temperature, metabolic, neural and psychological effects — faster VO2 kinetics, more anaerobic metabolism, post-activation potentiation; active warm-up produces the larger metabolic changes, while passive warming raises temperature without using substrate and is increasingly used to keep the athlete warm through the transition phase — a mechanisms-plus-design review for structuring warm-ups by sport.
Inference, not tested: build the warm-up progressively — raise temperature and VO2 first, then sport-specific activation, then a few short intense efforts for potentiation; the phase names are the full text's, the mechanisms are the abstract's.
Not from this paper; the base's own practice: for cycling, a progressive spin-up, brief off-bike dynamic mobility, then 2-3 short race-pace efforts.
If there is a long transition before the start (marshalling, call-up), use passive warming (jacket, heated garments) to hold muscle temperature — the abstract names this as the growing use of passive warm-up.
Inference, not tested: the review's own caveat — evidence was thin and practice trial-and-error — means individual testing of the warm-up in training still matters (REF-267).
Limitations
Narrative review format, no systematic method
Structured protocol (RAMP-type sequence) is a framework — limited direct empirical validation as a complete protocol
Abstract gives mechanisms and design intent, no effect sizes or durations
How this entry was checked and changed
Why this level
regraded 2026-09-27 from A-: narrative review without systematic method, from a leading applied-physiology group
Content correction 2026-09-27
Level A- -> B+: narrative review. Sport "cycling" -> general (the review covers individual and team sports).
"RAMP protocol" presented as the review's finding -> the abstract does not name RAMP; the sequence is labelled full text. "PAP window: 5-10 min" removed (not in the abstract).
Key Results now the abstract's content (temperature/metabolic/neural/psychological effects, passive vs active, transition-phase warming, thin earlier evidence); cycling protocol labelled as the base's own practice; lead now the review's own statements.