McGowan, CJ, Pyne, DB, Raglin, JS, Thompson, KG, and Rattray, B. Current warm-up practices and contemporary issues faced by elite swimming coaches. J Strength Cond Res 30(12): 3471–3480, 2016—A better understanding of current swimming warm-up strategies is needed to improve their effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to describe current precompetition warm-up practices and identify contemporary issues faced by elite swimming coaches during competition. Forty-six state-international level swimming coaches provided information through a questionnaire on their prescription of volume, intensity, and recovery within their pool and dryland-based competition warm-ups, and challenges faced during the final stages of event preparation. Coaches identified four key objectives of the precompetition warm-up: physiological (elevate body temperature and increase muscle activation), kinesthetic (tactile preparation, increase “feel” of the water), tactical (race-pace rehearsal), and mental (improve focus, reduce anxiety). Pool warm-up volume ranged from ∼1300 to 2100 m, beginning with 400–1000 m of continuous, low-intensity (∼50–70% of perceived maximal exertion) swimming, followed by 200–600 m of stroke drills and 1–2 sets (100–400 m in length) of increasing intensity (∼60–90%) swimming, concluding with 3–4 race or near race-pace efforts (25–100 m; ∼90–100%) and 100–400 m easy swimming. Dryland-based warm-up exercises, involving stretch cords and skipping, were also commonly prescribed. Coaches preferred swimmers complete their warm-up 20–30 minutes before race start. Lengthy marshalling periods (15–20+ minutes) and the time required to don racing suits (>10 minutes) were identified as complicating issues. Coaches believed that the pool warm-up affords athletes the opportunity to gain a tactile feel for the water and surrounding pool environment. The combination of dryland-based activation exercises followed by pool-based warm-up routines seems to be the preferred approach taken by elite swimming coaches preparing their athletes for competition.