If you went to a track competition you might see a difference in the way athletes warmed up for their events, compared to swimmers. Warms ups would be, prior to the particular race (or event), not en masse, and that warm up would gradually lead up to the performance without a long break.

If you watched a rugby event, if a player were to get sent off with a yellow card, they would not sit down on their penalty time of ten minutes, rather they would be using a stationary bike to stay warm. Then, when they joined back in, they would be physically ready, still warm.

Footballers, who are scheduled to be subbed into the game, can be seen jogging around the pitch to immediately jump into the game without delay when they are called upon. They did not only warm up prior to the start of the game and then lounge around in stands waiting their call-up.

Watching swim meets, during warm up, hurts my brain. Every kid, whether swimming first event or last event, in ten minutes or in three hours, gets in the pool at once. There might be twenty swimmers in a lane! Or more? Swimming smoothly is restricted and proper technique is almost impossible. Breaststroke is too slow, Butterfly is too wide and Backstroke is risking a concussion. Then, to allow some sprints, lanes are closed, causing more swimmers to go into the remaining lanes and a queue forms behind the sprint lanes. Swimmers stand freezing, awaiting their turn to dive and sprint.

There is no part of that process that is a warm up. Turns can not be done correctly to ensure the pool has standard black lines because vast numbers of swimmers congregate at the end of the lane.

Backstroke turns can not be checked and the stroke in general can not check the roof lines. Starts can not be done without getting very cold.

A timed sprint is a waste of time and if the coach has not done sprints in the normal training anyways. If sprinting has been missed in normal training, then just before racing is certainly the wrong time!

A gradual increase in heart rate and the increase of movement of muscles needs to be slowly introduced prior to the race. A fifteen minute ‘swim’ with random stopping and starting, two hours prior to a race, is not a warm up.

Getting ready for a race in a normal way, for most sports, has a gradual activity accumulation prior to the event and then warm clothes are put on. Then just before the race happens racing kit is put on. The ‘normal’ that a swim meet has for warm up, is in fact, opposite to a normal warm up. With the exception of international events; which it is legislated to have a separate warm up pool.

The way most swim competitions run their warm ups is stupid. Why it is done in that way is based on historical influences. However we are no longer in the 1950’s! Skipping, medicine balls, and that sort of warming up, is now a lot more common. However I still see so many competitions which run the old school Lemming-style warm up and it is stupid