Game-Day Warm-Ups: How to Prepare an Athlete to Perform

I have seen plenty of warm-ups that look impressive. It is a fascination of mine to see how teams and athletes prepare, and you will often see the same things: lots of exercises, bands, mobility drills, activation, dynamic stretching, and maybe some jumps and sprints.

But here is the question I think we should ask more often: what is the athlete actually trying to achieve?

Start with the demands

Before deciding what goes into a warm-up, we need to understand what we are preparing the athlete for.

• —What movements will they perform?
• —What speeds will they reach?
• —What forces will they produce?
• —What ranges of motion do they need?
• —What skills require the highest level of precision?

The warm-up should prepare the athlete for those demands. Here is the process I would follow and, importantly, why.

Raise temperature

This is the boring part, but it is important. Get the body moving. Increase temperature. Increase blood flow. But please do not spend 15 minutes jogging around just because ‘warm-up’ means running.

Use mobility with a purpose

Mobility should have a purpose. If you are preparing a fast bowler, that might mean preparing the shoulder, thoracic spine, hips and lower limb for high-speed bowling. For a batter, the requirements may be different.

Activation should earn its place

‘Activation’ has become one of those words that can mean almost anything. You do not need 17 band exercises because someone decided the glutes need activating.

The question should be: does this exercise improve the athlete's ability to perform what comes next? If yes, keep it. If not, remove it.

Build intensity progressively

This is probably one of the most important parts. A warm-up should not go from 0% to 100%. It should progressively build:

1. 01General
2. 02Specific
3. 03Fast
4. 04Explosive
5. 05Sport-specific

For cricket, that could look like raising temperature, then mobility, movement, acceleration, higher-speed movement, jumps and throws, and finally cricket-specific actions. The athlete should progressively experience the qualities they are about to need.

Leave something in the tank

I have seen warm-ups become 30–40 minute workouts. That is not necessarily better preparation. If the athlete finishes the warm-up sweating, exhausted and feeling like they have already completed a session, something has probably gone wrong.

The warm-up should create readiness, not fatigue. Ultimately, the best warm-up is not the one with the most exercises. It is the one that leaves the athlete most prepared for what comes next.