How To Tell When You’re Actually Warmed Up

The idea of warming up makes plenty of sense. You’re trying to get your hands or thumbs going before you jump into some matches, get the blood flowing, and get your head in the game. Most people have their own process that they use, and those who don’t simply queue up, take a quick L, and use the trusty “this one was a warm-up game!” excuse. We see you, you’re valid, but it’s not the warm-up routine we would specifically suggest…

What we would like to explore here is when you actually know that you’re warmed up. Do you simply set a specific amount of time for your warm-up that you use every day? Do we know if that is actually adequate, or are you just going through the motions of a ritual? Let’s outline some internal goals you can set for yourself to make sure you’re actually warmed up, not just queueing up and setting yourself up for early failure.

Your Scores Stop Climbing

Ideally, if you’re here with some Aimlabs content, you’re warming up with Aimlabs. Using the tasks you’re playing during your warm-up routine, be that a playlist or just a couple of tasks you play through, you should be seeing some ramping to your performance. After a few plays, you’re feeling snappier, landing your shots, and you’re likely seeing the score reflect that.

With that in mind, those scores can be a good indicator that you’re warmed up. After those few plays, you should see your scores begin to flatten out, rather than climbing. At this point, we don’t need to cram in more runs of that task… you’ve hit the point where you’re dialed in for that session. That said, you may want to move to another task that warms up a different mechanic, such as jumping from a flicking to a tracking task, and we would suggest applying that same bar to that as well.

Your Hands Feel Loose

Here’s a physical concept, which could be pretty easy to overlook. Your hands and fingers need literal warmth and blood flow to really perform those fine motor tasks at an ideal level. This is why, when it’s especially cold, you’ll find yourself blowing warm air into your cupped hands. At times, you’ll even see pro players on stages during events with harm warmers next to them, which they’re using.

If you’re sitting down for a session and notice that your hands still feel tight, your grip feels a bit awkward, or the mouse or your controller feels like objects that are fighting you rather than extensions of yourself to express your control and skill, then you’re not really warmed up yet. You may want to try some stretches to help loosen and warm up your hands, and those are, in general, a pretty healthy practice to adopt either way.

You Start Doing Without Thinking

As you’re starting your warm-up, there’s this conscious level of effort that you’re applying to the process. You’re sort of hyper-aware of what you’re doing as you aim, you’re reminding yourself to relax and settle in, and while that is a good part of the process, it also lets you know that you’re not quite in game mode yet.

The goal is to find that state where you’re acting and reacting without having to be so in your head about it, because if you’re playing some competitive shooter, you have bigger things to worry about and consider. Save your brainpower for processing comms, making calls, counterplaying enemies, and trying to outplay someone during a duel.

Use that warm-up time to shake off that mental fog that comes with switching context from whatever you were just doing to what you’re warming up to do. Find that headspace that you need to do your best work on the server. When your aiming feels more automatic, more second nature, and less deliberate and step-by-step planned, you know you’re ready to queue.

One Last Reminder

There’s no perfect, universal amount you need to warm up. Your process might be very different from your favorite aimer or creator on YouTube or TikTok. An important part of developing your warm-up routine is to identify what works best for you and your unique needs.

It’s also worth noting that some days may just take longer than others, and that’s on you to identify and make the call when you need to. Our goal here is to be as ready as possible, not to already have locked in a number of personal best scores on your favorite tasks. The scores we mentioned can give us some clues, but they’re not everything, so don’t beat yourself up if they’re not crushing your overall best. We’re looking at the trends more than the numbers. When you consider these signals and check in with yourself about being ready, you realize you already know when you’re warmed up and ready to go.