Cooldown - is it useful?

[Deleted User]

A general question: is the cooldown considered a crucial piece of a workout? I understand there are benefits like keeping the blood flowing after a hard main set and promoting "active" recovery, but I wonder if I'm cheating myself out of any major benefit by ending my workout after the main set. For swim and bike (mostly indoor) workouts, I tack on all the volume on the front end of the session and call it done once I'm done after the MS. For the run, I usually have a cooldown of some sort just because my main set is usually done at a track or some venue where I have to jog to and from for 1-2 miles anyway.

Just wondering about everyone's experiences with this.

Al Truscott

The harder/longer the effort, the more the "cool down" may have some value, I think. At the extreme (after a hard IM race day effort), if one does not keep moving for a while, and try to lie down, you'll get hypotensive as well as muscle cramps, and have a hard if not impossible time getting back up. A cool down after a "recovery" workout is, of course a silly idea, but after doing hard VO2 or FTP type bike intervals or their equal in the pool ar at the track, you're best served by keeping yourself in motion for 5 minutes at least, IMO.

The thing that clinches it for me is what the top tier athletes do in our sports. Af the Olympics (or any major swim meet), you'll see the "distance" swimmers popping into the "warm-up pool" for some easy laps _after_ their race. At a cycling grand tour, you'll see the bikers toodling around for 1-2 hours on their "off" day. After any track or road race, you'll see the top finishers continuing to walk after the finish. They must be exhausted at that point, and yet they are cooling down, so they must feel they are getting some benefit from the process. I mean, why would anyone want to go out and ride for a couple of hours after going hard150-200 km a day for 8 days straight, etc.

Michael Byerts

For both the swim and bike (indoors), I do an easy cooldown for 2-3 minutes, and I walk for 1-2 minutes after run workouts. I find it reduces muscle soreness later on, but that might be simply psycho-somatic. And yes, when I was a swimmer, I would do a 500-1000 yard warmdown after races. But that was based on what is now out-dated information. Back in the early-mid 1990's, the conventional swimming wisdom (I thought) was that lactic acid caused the burning in your muscles, and that you warmed down to flush it out. I understand that more recent research says that lactic acid is not actually the cause of soreness or fatigue.

Nate Parady

I believe at the very least it is important to get your HR down before you jump off your bike or come to a dead stop after a run. the powers that be in the army always preached to us not to do sit ups after a run and keep your head above your heart so you wouldn't die from a heart attack. There were probably a few cases a year in the army of this happening. I have no idea if it truly had anything to do with proper cool down but like many things I learned in the army, it has stayed with me and i still do it.