Warming up for your aim and games - A definitive Guide

Introduction:

Warming up - We hear it everywhere. We hear it in the sports we play. We hear it in the classroom. We hear it when we are outside in the cold. We hear it during our Aim training sessions too!

Professional players always warm up for games. Players Like Mongraal and Tfue will play Aim trainers to warm up their aim, or Fortnite build courses to improve on their editing. As the game changes, the warmup routine also changes. There are lots of creators out there who use Fortnite’s creative mode to build aim and build courses. With these courses, they will focus on their aim practice and their building/editing speed and complexity.

In Call of duty Warzone, it may be as simple as balancing some aim Training on an aim trainer, along with playing Some Team Deathmatch or Deathmatch modes on the main game.

For Apex Legends, players may hop into the shooting arena, where you can test out guns such as the R-99 and the Wingman. There are moving targets which you must eliminate in order to bring them down.

These warmup routines work well for players who only play those specific games, but you can always go a step further by incorporating some dedicated aim training into your routine.

What is a warm up?

Warming up is a key component of skill performance. Warming ourselves up physically and mentally is especially important when it comes to performing. Warming up in the context of aim is a set of Drills that represent more basic objectives, with the goal of warming up the parts of the body responsible for aim and engaging the brain in such a way that you are geared towards learning and critical thinking.

Most Warmup routines will consist of a set of warmup Drills that will target different aspects of aim, helping you get into the right mindset for optimal learning. I would categorise warmup playlists into two categories: General warmups and Focused warmups.

General Warm Ups:

A general warmup is a playlist or routine that consists of Drills which cover a wide spectrum of aiming styles and mindsets. These playlists are great for varied learners that want to split up their practice across the day, training multiple aspects of their aim instead of focusing on one.

An advantage of a General Warmup routine is that this routine will cover lots of aiming styles. As explained above, this is great for players who want a varied style of learning - constantly engaged in new tasks while training their cognitive and perceptual adaptation to a range of aiming styles.

Another great advantage of general warmups routines is that they, when structured correctly, can closely resemble aiming styles seen in other applications and games. A great example of a well thought out general routine is one based off of the aiming styles seen in Valorant: Small targets where click-timing and target switching is predominant over tracking. This allows the player to train physical movements and warm up that way, but also focus on quickly changing environments within the same context, getting a “feel” for the variability of aimstyles.

A disadvantage to general warmups is that they are usually not optimised for complex skills.This is because approaching a complex skill requires a lot of effort and attention. You need at least an hour of concentrated effort when reading a complex skill in order to learn from it.

Focused Warmups:

A focused warmup is a playlist or routine that consists of Drills which focus on a more narrow band of the spectrum, where the objective is to warm up the player for a specific skill.

An advantage of Focused warmups is that they are good for advanced players who want to break down a skill into subskills, ensuring they are maximising their learning potential from a particular aiming style. For example, if you are looking to improve your visuomotor coordination, you would simply focus on smaller targets that you must click or track in order to improve visuomotor coordination and proprioception resolution.

Another advantage of focused warmups is that they can be tailored towards simplistics variations of the complex skill you are trying to learn, so you are more focused and ready to learn that specific skill.

A disadvantage to focused warmups is that they can be overwhelming for a player with less skill. This is because the player does not understand the usefulness of the routine, nor do they know the processes involved in learning the skill. A sum up of this sort of mindset is a person who thinks “Just hit targets faster”.

Warming up with Aiming.pro

Warming up with Aiming.Pro is easy. You must ensure that you are first logged onto the site, so that you can confidently track your warm up progress.

Sign up here! https://aiming.pro/app/#/dashboard

Once you are signed in, you can look for a General or Focused Warmup routine that will prepare you for your main session. The easiest way to do this is to head over to the “Train” page and select “playlists”.

 On this page, you are presented with a select amount of playlists. What you can do from here is use the input box to search for specific keyboards. I personally suggest using “Warmup” as a keyword for finding warm up playlists.

As the site grows even more, creators, coaches and players alike will no doubt be creating warm up routines for their personal gain or to help others. We suggest you check in with us often to find new playlists!

We all have our personal takes on warming up, so we encourage you to try them all to find the best warmup routine for you.

The most popular warm up on the site (as of present) is the “Daily Warmup Routine” by Aiming.Pro. This routine consists of a set of scenarios that cover many aspects of aiming styles, such as flicking, tracking and reaction time. These scenarios will cover most of the spectrum, from fast flicks to smooth movements.

A great example of a Focused routine is the warm up routine found in the warmup category of the site, under the Train page. This warmup uses focused scenarios that are heavily based on Valorant and CSGO movement, with the focus being on small targets and precise aiming.

Aiming.Pro Warm Up tool

If you are subscribed to Aiming.Pro and have your plus membership setup, you can take advantage of the warm up progression feature.

This tool lets you take any playlist you have saved and place it into the tool to optimise your warmups.

The tool works by taking the scores of each and every scenario. It then will work out a gradual percentage of that score ranging from “Not Warmed up” to “on fire”. We recommend you play that scenario until you are “Warmed up” for general routines, and “On fire” for focused routines.

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We are a passionate community full of players of all skill levels. We all warmup and we all see improvement! Come and share your stories, ask questions or offer advice!

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