Impact of Warm-Up on Muscle Temperature and Athletic Performance

ABSTRACT

Purpose: We performed two studies to investigate: the minute-by-minute changes in muscle temperature following a 20-min warm-up routine (Study-1) and the impact of the typical post-warm-up period of inactivity on the performance of basketball athletes (Study-2). Method: In Study-1, 26 males (age: 23.6 ± 6.2 yr; BMI: 24.1 ± 3.1 kg/m²) performed a 20-min cycling warm-up and then rested for 20 min. Tibialis anterior muscle temperature was assessed throughout. In Study-2, six male professional basketball players (age: 24.9 ± 4.6 yr; BMI: 25.5 ± 1.8 kg/m²) performed a series of basketball performance tests after a 20-min warm-up, as well as 9-min and 23-min into a post-warm-up period of inactivity. Results: On average, muscle temperature increased by 0.1°C every minute during warm-up and dropped by the same amount every minute during inactivity. The increase during warm-up and the decrease during inactivity were higher at the start of each period. A 9-min inactivity period is accompanied by 3.8 ± 0.6% reduction in countermovement jump (p = .046). A 23-min inactivity period is accompanied by 7.3 ± 0.7% reduction in lay-up points (p = .027). Conclusion: These two studies show that a 20-min warm-up routine increases muscle temperature but this benefit is lost after a typical post-warm-up inactivity period in high-level basketball, leading to reductions in certain aspects of athletic performance.

Highlights

• Warm-up increases muscle temperature and benefits performance, but it is not clear how long these benefits are active for.

• In sports, such as basketball, athletes may stay on the bench for a considerable amount of time post warm-up, and then are required to enter the game and perform at maximum intensity despite that they may have cooled down, posing an important knowledge gap for athletes, coaches, and event organizers.

• We found that muscle temperature increases, on average, by 0.1°C every minute during a 20-min warm-up routine and drops by the same amount every minute during a 20-min post-warm-up inactivity period.

• In total, the two studies presented in this article show that a warm-up routine increases muscle temperature, but this benefit is lost after a typical post-warm-up period of inactivity in high-level basketball, leading to reductions in certain aspects of athletic performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Basketball
• exercise
• inactivity
• muscular
• recovery
• substitute
• team sports

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.