Warm-Ups & Cooldowns: USA Cycling Course

Our online course, “Warm-Ups and Cooldowns,” shows you how to dial in race-day prep and recovery routines, so your athletes feel strong, confident, and fully prepared when it matters most.

See what today’s science (and elite riders) really say about warming up and cooling down. You’ll learn how to:

• Design event-specific warm-ups that match the effort, duration, and demands of time trials, crits, road races, and stage races.
• Apply the science of VO₂ priming and post-activation potentiation (PAP) to help your athletes start fast, without burning them out.
• Identify how warm-up timing, temperature, and terrain affect performance (and what to do when your rider is standing at staging for 20 minutes).
• Use cool-down strategies that promote faster recovery, improve blood flow, and reduce muscle soreness, without guesswork.
• Build confidence and readiness with simple mental prep techniques integrated into the warm-up.

You’ll also hear insights from performance experts like Dr. Ben Rattray (Australian Institute of Sport) and Fast Talk Labs coaches Trevor Connor and Ryan Kohler, plus evidence from real-world studies that challenge outdated traditions and show what actually works.

This course helps you guide athletes to the start line feeling focused, ready, and physiologically primed—then recover smarter for the next big effort. Watch the transformation unfold when you upgrade one of the most overlooked aspects of race-day coaching.

How to Enroll

All USA Cycling courses are offered exclusively through USA Cycling’s online learning management system at learn.usacycling.org.

Questions? Contact Suzy Sanchez, Director of DEI and Membership Programs, at ssanchez@usacycling.org.