Warm-up, exercise, cool-down. That seems to be the established order of things when you work out. Doing an active warm-up like jogging in place before getting to the “meat” of a workout makes sense since you want to increase blood flow to your muscles, tendons, and ligaments before upping the intensity. Some people skip the cool-down entirely. If they’re short on time, that’s the part they’re more likely to shorten or blow off entirely. Are there risks to doing this?
Exercise Cool-Downs: Does Cooling Down Prevent Muscle Soreness?
A gradual cool-down helps to remove lactic acid that builds up during exercise, especially during high-intensity exercise. At one time, experts believed that lactic acid accumulation was responsible for delayed-onset muscle soreness or DOMS, the muscle aches and stiffness that appears a day or two after a workout you’re not accustomed to. Now, most experts believe that lactic acid isn’t the cause of DOMS, instead, DOMS comes from microscopic tears in muscle fibers, which leads to low-grade inflammation. Lactic acid has been exonerated, and whether or not cooling down has any effect on muscle soreness after exercise is debatable. Some studies show warming up and cooling down reduces muscle soreness. Others show that only the warm-up has benefits. If cooling down has any effect on DOMS, it’s probably not a major one.
When a cool-down makes more sense is if you plan on exercising again in a short period of time. In this case, cooling down removes lactic acid more quickly from muscles than plopping into a chair. Lactic acid is linked with decreases in muscle cell pH, which is believed to play a role in muscle fatigue. Doing an active cool-down can help you prepare for a second exercise session. Interestingly, recent research suggests that it’s not so much muscle cell acidity that causes muscles to fatigue but the build-up of inorganic phosphate in muscle cells.
There Are Still Good Reasons to Cool Down Gradually
One reason why cool-downs are important has to do with how muscles, heart, and veins react to exercise. When you exercise, your heart rate speeds up to deliver blood and oxygen more quickly to the hard-working muscles in your feet and legs. When you suddenly stop your workout without gradually cooling down, your heart rate drops too. This causes blood to pool in your legs and feet, which can make you feel dizzy or lightheaded. This is even more likely to happen if you’re well-trained or if you don’t drink enough fluids. If you’re in top shape, your heart rate will slow even faster after exercise, which leads to more blood pooling if you stop quickly. If you won’t want to experience these symptoms, don’t plop down in a chair or collapse on the exercise mat after you’ve just finished you run on the treadmill.
The Best Way to Cool-Down
Cooling down may not prevent injury or reduce muscle soreness, but it gives your body a chance to gradually return to its pre-exercise state and keeps blood flowing to your brain rather than pooling in your feet and legs.
To cool-down, gradually decrease the intensity of your workout and exercise at a lower intensity for 5 to 7 minutes. If you’re running, slow to a walk and maintain it for five minutes. After a cool-down is the best time to stretch since your muscles are more flexible and less prone to injury. Once you’ve cooled down and stretched, focus on rehydration and eating a snack of lean protein and carbs to help with muscle repair and replacement of glycogen stores. Then you can plop down in a chair to rest.
References:
Australian Journal of Physiotherapy 53: 91-95.
Curr Opin Rheumatol. 2002;14(6) © 2002 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Am J Sports Med. 1993 Sep-Oct;21(5):711-9.
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