Periodization of Readiness: Applying Warm-Up Principles to Workplace Performance and Productivity

Readiness is a critical yet underexplored determinant of workplace performance. In sport, warm-ups are carefully structured to optimize physiological and psychological preparedness, guided by periodization principles such as progression, variation, cycles, and recovery. This narrative review extends these principles beyond athletics, advancing the concept of “periodized readiness” for organizational settings. The warm-up is reframed as a ritual of activation that primes physical, cognitive, and emotional systems for immediate performance. When translated to the workplace, readiness rituals, ranging from brief cognitive drills to mindfulness or movement practices, emerge as strategies to enhance focus, creativity, and resilience. Periodization principles provide an additional framework, enabling readiness to be sustained through micro-cycles of daily activation, meso-cycles of workload variation, and macro-cycles of seasonal recovery. These structured approaches parallel sport science models and offer a pathway to mitigate fatigue, reduce burnout, and optimize long-term productivity. Drawing on evidence from exercise science, organizational psychology, and occupational health, this review proposes a conceptual model of “Workplace Readiness Periodization” that integrates activation and recovery into the daily and seasonal rhythms of professional life. Shifting the emphasis from constant output to strategic cycles of readiness positions organizations to foster sustainable performance, innovation, and employee well-being.

Keywords: Readiness, Warm-up, Periodization, Workplace Performance, Productivity, Organizational Health.