Resumen:
Purpose: This study was designed to determine the effect of warm-up on 3-km cycling time trial (TT) performance, and the influence of accelerated V̇O2 kinetics on such effect.
Methods: Eight well-trained road cyclists, habituated to 3-km time trials, performed randomly ordered 3-km TT after a) no warm-up (NWU), b) easy warm-up (EWU) (15 min comprised of 5-min segments at 70, 80, and 90% of ventilatory threshold (VT) followed by 2 min of rest), or c) hard warm-up (HWU) (15 min comprised of 5-min segments at 70, 80, and 90% VT, plus 3 min at the respiratory compensation threshold (RCT) followed by 6 min of rest). V̇O2 and power output (SRM), aerobic and anaerobic energy contributions, and V̇O2 kinetics (mean response time to 63% of the V̇O2 observed at 2 km) were determined throughout each TT.
Results: Three-kilometer TT performance was (P < 0.05) improved for both EWU (266.8 ± 12.0 s) (−2.8%) and HWU (267.3 ± 10.4 s) (−2.6%) versus NWU (274.4 ± 12.1 s). The gain in performance was predominantly during the first 1000 m in both EWU (48% of gain) and HWU (53% of gain). This reflected a higher power output during the first 1000 m in both EWU (384 W) and HWU warm-up (386 W) versus NWU (344 W) tri...