How to Create the Perfect VALORANT Warmup
Whether it be a physical sport or an esports game, a warmup before your matches is necessary for consistent performance. Unless you are gifted with extreme amounts of natural talent, it is recommended that you warm up at least for a bit before queuing for ranked matches. Creating and following a good VALORANT warmup routine can mean the difference between being inconsistent in those first few games or being locked in from the very beginning of your session. In this article, we’ll give you some pointers so you can create your own perfect warmup routine.
Difference Between Training Routine and Warmup Routine
People often correlate warmup routines with aim training, but that can’t be further from the truth. An aim training routine is an extensive training regiment to improve your aim. Aim training routines can last for 30-45 minutes and target weak points of your aim. Aim training is something that serious players utilize in order to get better, and it’s definitely not for everyone.
On the other hand, a warmup is like a light stretch before a match. It’s used to warm up your hands, get comfortable with the mouse, and get used to your sensitivity and the overall feeling of being in the game. A warmup typically only last for a maximum of 10-15 minutes and doesn’t involve any in-depth training. A warmup is meant to get into the zone and unlock skills that you already have, it’s not meant to improve your skills.
Fundamentals of Aim
Most people often relate good aim to the flicking ability of the player since flicks are often the most ‘highlight reel worthy’ types of aim. Flicking is only one aspect of aim though, and if you only train or warm up your flicks, your aiming ability will have holes.
A good warmup should have all parts of the aim. This means flicking, tracking, and also incorporating movement (both by enemies and yourself). There are tons of sub-categories to divide these fundamentals in, but for a warmup they can be targeted in a general sense.
Steps to Creating a Balanced Warm-up Routine
Creating a good warmup routine isn’t that hard when you understand the fundamentals of aim. All you need to do is split your warmup time so that you devote enough attention to each of these fundamentals. Here are the basic steps you need to follow to create a balanced warmup routine.
- Train your flicks. It’s what most players enjoy and it’s a great way to get into the momentum.
- Then move on to tracking. Tracking is a really important part of aiming in VALORANT so you need to warm up your tracking.
- Then combine the two with some movement. You can practice strafe shooting, jiggle peeks, and clearing angles. The training range has everything you need for this.
- Finally, end it off with reaction training. The bot training modes in the range are excellent tools for this.
This is as basic and barebones as a warmup can be, but you can tweak this to your comfort. Here are some things you can add to your warmup to make it even more personalized. For example, you can warm up with specific agents. If you main an agent, warming up with them is a great idea. For example, with Jett, you can throw smokes, dash around, throw ult knives, …
The amount of customizations you can make to your warmup routine are basically endless. The only thing you need to worry about is to make sure the basics are covered and that you’ve covered a bit of everything in your warmup.
Some Tips to Perfect Your Warmup Routine
Now that you have the basic knowledge to create a good warmup routine to get you in the zone, here are some tips to make your warmup experience even better.
Keep it Simple
Simplicity is very important in a warmup. As we mentioned above, a warmup is not your aim training routine. It’s just a set of exercises to get you into the zone. For this reason, try to keep your warmups simple. They should be 10-15 minutes in length, with a handful of exercises to get you going and get you excited to play. A warmup should not feel like training and a chore.
Having Variety is Good
Something that you can do to make sure warmups don’t get boring is adding some variety. Every so often, change the way you warm up. Sometimes you can warm up in the range, other days you can play some deathmatch rounds, or put some time into an aim trainer. Having variety in your warmups keeps them interesting and prevents you from getting bored. Furthermore, variety can also increase your focus. Once a task or routine becomes too familiar, your brain goes on autopilot when completing it. Some players find it beneficial to have variety in their warmups.
Don’t Overdo It
It’s a bit redundant to mention this as we have covered this above, but one of the biggest mistakes players make is warming up for too long. If you end up warming up for too long, you will end up tiring yourself out. You only have a limited performance window every day, and wasting all of that on a warmup routine is not a good idea. Precisely how long this performance window lasts depends on the person, but in general you should know that longer isn’t better when it comes to your VALORANT warmup.
Some Beginner VALORANT Warmup Routines
Of course, not everyone has the time or experience to create a warmup routine from scratch. That’s why we have created some solid beginner warmup routines to get you started. These are very straightforward routines that don’t take a lot of time. Of course, all of these can be tweaked to your liking. These are perfect for beginners and veterans alike.
The Classic Range Routine
The range is one of the best places to improve your VALORANT performance. Making a warmup routine in the range is a really good idea. Plus, it’s convenient since you’re already in the game itself.
- First, set the mode to practice. Then just try to headshot all the bots. Go for accuracy over speed as we will warm up your speed later in this routine. Get comfortable with your sensitivity and try to be as precise as you can be. Also make sure to incorporate movement into this, like strafing left and right while shooting. Do this for a few minutes before moving to the next part.
- Now, it’s time for tracking and mouse control. For this, put your crosshair on the head of a bot and move side to side while keeping the crosshair on the head. If you have never done tracking training before, this will feel a bit uncomfortable. But it’s a good way to get a better feel for your sensitivity and improve your mouse control.
- Next. set the mode to training. Start from the easy difficulty, and move to the hard mode at the end. Try to get all the 30 bots before moving to the next difficulty. Try to kill the bot as fast as you can. This will warm up your reaction and speed.
- Finally, end it off with a bit of spray control and weapon-specific training (warming up with the Operator, for example).
Deathmatch Routine
Deathmatch is one of the most popular ways to warm up and there is good reason for it. Because you are actively fighting real players, the warmup becomes a bit more practical and useful than shooting bots. It prepares you for the duels in your match. The new team deathmatch mode is also a solid alternative to a free-for-all deathmatch session. Some might say it’s better as you can also use agent abilities in that, so go with what you prefer.
When using DM as a warmup, you should keep a couple of things in mind. Firstly, you should realize that your goal is not to win the deathmatch, it’s to warm up. Focus on warming up your aim instead of hiding in a corner and waiting for easy frags on unsuspecting players. Practice one-taps, strafe shots, etc. Try to get into as many fights as possible. Focus on crosshair placement and movement as well. Also, practice with different weapons including pistols, rifles, and snipers. A match or two should be good enough as a warmup for most people.
Aim Trainers
The debate of whether aim trainers are worth it for VALORANT is one that will never end, but there is one thing for certain: aim trainers are fun. It’s one of the reasons why they are so popular. They gamify aim training by giving stats, high scores, and challenges. This makes aim training a game in and of itself. If you enjoy playing aim trainers then you can definitely use them as a warmup routine. Just make sure to set the aim trainer’s settings to match VALORANT.
Since there are multiple aim trainers out there, we can’t give you a set of exercises you will find on all of them. However, you should be able to find specific playlists for warming up on VALORANT in both Aimlabs (free) as well as KovaaK’s (paid).
Again, 10-15 minutes on your aim trainer is enough.
Conclusion
This guide gives you basic guidelines on how to make a warmup routine for yourself. We also included some basic warmup routines to get you started. Ultimately, how you warm up depends on your playstyle and preferences, but we definitely recommend you to try out warming up before your next couple of games. It can make you much more consistent during those first few games/rounds, which can help with winning close games that you otherwise would’ve lost.
