Cool-Downs: Are They Really Worth It?!

Short answer - yes! 

One of the main reasons I really encourage a cool/warm down is to aid recovery post-training and make use of the warmth in the muscles for some useful mobility. But what does the science say? 

  • Just like warming up preps the muscles and raises heart rate and body temperature, the cool down is also vital in restoring the body back to its normal state post-training 

  • Cooling down helps both breathing and heart rate gently return to their resting levels.

  • It helps pooling of blood in large muscles (preventing dizziness/fainting from occurring) 

  • It helps to remove metabolites from the working muscles (the lactic acid is more readily removed by gentle exercise than stopping without it). 

  • Post-training recovery helps the body to prepare for the next training session. 

It’s not just physiological benefits we’re looking for, psychological and social aspects can be beneficial too, like calming down the mind after an intense workout. There’s still a lot of research to be done around post-training recovery, but from what we do know overall, there is no harm in adding a cool down to your training, especially as mobility and flexibility in the muscles and joints may improve, aiding potential injury prevention. 

Here are some top tips when it comes to your post-training cool-down:  

  • 5-10 minutes of recovery warm down should generally be enough, but if the training is particularly intense then a longer warm down may be necessary

  • Mobility and flexibility can really be improved through post-training recovery, as the muscles used in the session will be warmed up from the training.

  • Depending on the type of session you’ve done, holding static stretches of the working muscles for 20-30 seconds is really beneficial 

  • Stretching the muscles worked 2-3 times will gain more long term responses 

  • When doing flexibility/mobility exercises, focus on breathing – to gain the most benefits of your warm down

 Some more useful references below: 

NASM Essentials of Personal Fitness Training 

Woods K, Bishop P, Jones E. Warm-up and stretching in the prevention of muscular injury. Sports Medicine 2007. 

Bishop D. Warm up II: Performance Changes Following Active Warm up and How to Structure the Warm up. Sports Medicine 2003. 

Grace Brown