Why You Should Cool Down After a Workout

A common thing for people to skip when they workout is the cool down. Most commonly, people want to get done with the workout as fast as possible, or get done the cardio and move to the strength training. Skipping a cool down is a very bad habit to get into. A cool down is much more important than a warm up.

Reasons Why You Need to Cool Down

• Cooling down allows your body to decrease lactic acid buildup in the muscles.
  After you stop working at a high intensity, your body goes into a phase called OBLA, onset of blood lactate accumulation. This is when lactic acid, which is produced in anaerobic respiration (achieved during high intensity workouts) is built up in the blood faster than it can be removed. If you go from a high intensity to sitting down without a cool down, lactic acid builds up in greater quantities in the muscles. Lactic acid buildup leads to soreness. By cooling down, you're allowing the some of the lactic acid to be cleared out of the blood, preventing as much soreness as possible.
  
  
• Cool Downs are Good for the Heart.
  Your heart is a muscle, so it also needs to cool down after exercise. A cool down after exercise will gradually lower your heart rate. This will put less stress on the heart, therefore, keeping it healthy. Cool downs are still exercise, so the body will send more blood to the muscles than any other part of the body. Because you're catching your breath and switching back to aerobic exercise, the heart will have more oxygen to deliver to the blood, and the blood can deliver more oxygen to the working muscles, allowing them to recover better.
  
  
• Cool Downs Help Return to Normal Breathing Rates
  If you have trouble catching your breath at the end of exercise, you should cool down until you have obtained a normal rate of breathing for at least 5 minutes. This will help with the lactic acid buildup mentioned before, also help your heart, and give you a good idea of how long you should cool down for. How long it takes you to return to normal breathing is also a good indicator of how in shape you are. If it takes you longer, you're not in great shape. Depending on the exercise, it should take you less than 45 seconds to return to a normal breathing rate if you're in shape. This can vary from person to person and also depends on the length of exercise.
  
  
  

How to design a cool down depending on your workout.

• The cool down should be done at a slower pace than the workout.
  
  
• The cool down should last for about 5 minutes.
  More if the exercise is very strenuous, less if you were doing something such as walking.
  
  
• The cool down should be less strenuous than the workout.
  For example if you were running/biking/walking up hill for your exercise, you will want to cool down on a flat or downhill area.
  
  
• Avoid abrupt changes in pace.
  Going from jogging to walking is a good change of pace, not too abrupt. Going from 100% intensity to walking would not be a good change. If you're working out at a high intensity, go from high to medium, stay at medium for a couple minutes, then you can switch from medium to low and stay at low intensity for the rest of the cool down.