I don’t really think of it as a warmup as I don’t aim to get my temperature up for strength practice, but ramping up does help some of my lifts and not others.
Circadian Rythum
Your body has a 24 hour clock in which your body temperature flucutuates, a sine curve.
Your body temperture only fluctuates a little. However, when it is at the apex, your performance is optimized: physically and mentally.
Determining You Circaridan Rythum
Taking your Body Temperature upon waking and then taking it every two hours is effective way to measure and record it.
However, that isn't really necessary.
Most individual know what parts of the day they feel there best and what parts of the day the would like to take a nap.
The Importance of Body Temperature In Performance and Training
Those Wacky East Germans
Charlie Francis
Think you have what it takes to make it in the world of elite sports? Do you have immense talent and ability?
www.t-nation.com
The East Germans understood the role of additional heat when an extensive review of world record performances revealed how often the record setter was at the early stages of a cold and running a fever when the record was set. (Later into the cold, the adverse effects outweigh the benefits, of course.)
This led the East Germans to experiment with de-natured viruses to generate a slight fever immediately prior to a world record attempt!
With that in mind, let's look at some...
Passive Warm Ups Methods
1) Warm Shower
2) Sweat Pants and Shirt
Kutting Weight provides one of the best. Their Sweat Shirts, Pants, Vest, Shorts, etc are neoprene; essentially a Wet Diving Wet Suit.'
3) Coffee/Caffeine
a) Responders
These individual respond to caffeine; an increase in heart rate due to catecholamines include dopamine, epinephrine (adrenaline), and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) which usually trigger an increase in body bempeature.
Resarch shows that caffeine
"performance benefits seem to peak around 5-6 mg/kg..."
Source:
The Lifter’s Guide to Caffeine • Stronger by Science
Side Note
Individual who train in the morning after waking up, need to wait an hour before having a cup of coffee or caffeine.
That due...
The Dawn Phenomenon
The dawn phenomenon is when your blood sugar rises in the morning. This can be an issue for people with diabetes.
www.healthline.com
When levels of these hormones increase, your liver is stimulated to release glucose into your bloodstream.
This gives your body a boost of energy to prepare you to wake up in the morning.
This natural increase in blood sugar occurs in all people.
The hormones stimulate you to wake up but dampen and block the effects that coffee/caffeine provide. if ingested immediately after waking.
However, the hormones produced in the Dawn Phenomenon subside after an hour.
Thus, a greater effect of coffee/caffeine is achieved by waiting an hour after waking.
Half-life of Caffeine
All drugs have what is called a “half-life”. This is simply the amount of time it takes for half of the drug to be metabolized. This concept is used by doctors and pharmacists to determine appropriate drug dosing for patients. (Here’s a great
drug half life calculator that shows the half-life of many common drugs.)
Caffeine is no different and takes a certain amount of time to work through your system and be metabolized by your liver. One study showed that
the half-life of caffeine in healthy adults is 5.7 hours (
see source).
This means if you consume 200 mg of caffeine at mid-day, you would still have 100 mg in you at around 5:45 pm.
Extending The Half Life
The half life of coffee (caffeine) can be extended if some type of fat is added; cream, butter, etc. to your coffee.
Fat slows absorption which extends the half life of caffeine.
Adding sugar, honey, or consuming some type of simple carbohydrate with coffee/caffeine is counterproductive.
Doing so increase Insulin which blocks the body's catecholamines; epinephrine (adrenaline), and norepinephrine (noradrenaline), which ramp you up.
b) Non-Responders
Some individuals don't respond to coffee/caffeine.
Wheather you respond or don't respond to caffeine has to do with your genotype.
Source:
Research Spotlight: Another look at genes and caffeine – Who can benefit? • Stronger by Science
Summary
1) Circadian Rythum
Training peformed at the apex of your Circadian Rythum optimizes it.
2) Passively Increasing Your Body Temperature
The above methods allow you to increase your Body Temperature, even bump it minutely above the Apex of your Natural Circadian Rythum.