Warm Up Specificity – spinning

Spinning is great, for cyclists!

If you watch the first 20 seconds of this clip you will see Tomlinson warming up for his role as a running back on a stationary spinning bike.

He has a groin injury, if it were me I would try to replicate the moves I was going to do in the game at a slow tempo and gradually build up speed.

Spinning is a good form of exercise, and for big guys may be a valid alternative to running to take the load off the joints, but it will make your back stiff and your hamstrings and calves tight.

It also involves no lateral movement at all. This to me does not make it suitable for a warm up for an explosive change of direction sport like Gridiron. Instead, I would use the principles found in our Ultimate Guide to Warm Ups.

I taught spinning twice a week for 6 years, so have some idea of what it involves, and for interval type training for the central cv system it is very effective. But I always made sure I was doing much more sport specific work before or after that. The other advantage is that it is indoors, the disdvantage is that those type of bikes cost a lot and you usually have to be a member of a gym to take part.