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The Cooldown: Is It Needed?
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Team Sky and their marginals gains doctrine has re-popularized the cooldown, and now most World Tour teams have their teams on trainers in front of the team bus after races, doing long cool-downs.

And I've long heard the maxim about "clearing the lactic acid from your system," from back in my high school track days.

But are cooldowns actually worthwhile?

Some relatively recent research: Do We Need a Cool-Down After Exercise? A Narrative Review of the Psychophysiological Effects and the Effects on Performance, Injuries and the Long-Term Adaptive Response.

That survey sure couldn't find much benefit, though admits there's still a lot that's not known, and hasn't been studied.

For me it has some purely subjective value as a time so socialize about a workout, if in a group. And after races it provides a chance to slowly step down from the wired state that at least I tend to get into while racing.

But it sure would help time efficiency to just skip it the rest of the time.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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I do a cooldown walk after runs usually to bring myself back into the "normal" state. Drop the heart rate slowly rather than jumping straight into the shower.

Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [TheStroBro] [ In reply to ]
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I think he is inquiring more about whether there is a training benefit. I have often doubted the benefits of the cool down but Im also always in a rush after my workout so I “cool down” 1-3’ and call it quits, so that’s my excuse. If I had unlimited time, I would probably do something longer but wonder if there is any evidence to support the training benefit of it. There are also so many more tools to recover than Were available 25 years ago.
Last edited by: DFW_Tri: Feb 17, 19 20:14
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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This so much like the Pro-inflammation arguement, but the correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

If you don’t think there is a benefit to cooling down and clearing the legs out, than you should go straight from the finish line of every race to the car. Drive for an hour or two and see how good the legs feel when you get home and the next day. Seriously. This cool down routine maximizes your recovery time because you stop expending energy as soon as you finish the race. There is a cost to wasting your time cooling down, so no cool down has to be “optimal”.

Most people have probably figured that this routine isn’t great for recovery and well, it would just be dumb. There is probably a reasonable amount of low effort riding that helps. What the optimal time and Intensity are is the hard part.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [grumpier.mike] [ In reply to ]
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grumpier.mike wrote:
This so much like the Pro-inflammation arguement, but the correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

If you don’t think there is a benefit to cooling down and clearing the legs out, than you should go straight from the finish line of every race to the car. Drive for an hour or two and see how good the legs feel when you get home and the next day. Seriously. This cool down routine maximizes your recovery time because you stop expending energy as soon as you finish the race. There is a cost to wasting your time cooling down, so no cool down has to be “optimal”.

Most people have probably figured that this routine isn’t great for recovery and well, it would just be dumb. There is probably a reasonable amount of low effort riding that helps. What the optimal time and Intensity are is the hard part.

that's a pretty silly way to look at it. so your test is comparing how you feel when you (1) go right from finishing a race to sitting in a car for two hours to (2) do a cool down after a race? How about finish a race, stand around for an hour while waiting for your hardware and then driving two hours? is the care ride going to make you feel any different? my guess is, no.

i usually do some kind of a cool down after a race just because that's what i was taught to do but there's nothing wrong with taking a step back and asking what is really going on here? i'm am pretty banged up after a race so the act of then going for a short and slow run on muscles that already are fatigued/shredded might not be the best thing to do and i am open to hearing someone who thinks maybe it's NOT a good thing to do. the concept of "flushing the lactic acid out of the muscles" does seem a bit ridiculous. the LA is in the muscles so then using them some more is supposed to "flush" the LA out? i would think it would ADD to the LA.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [mag900] [ In reply to ]
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I guess I was thinking more about cycling where you can spin really easily. The impact of running is just so much harder that I would think just walking around for 10-20 minutes would be the equivalent. I am not sure jogging is quite easy enough.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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Not to take away from your discussion, but we also have to keep in mind that Team Sky is getting compensation from Wahoo to be doing those public cooldowns on Kickrs.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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I come from a swimming and swim coaching background. I've also done marathons and IM, so I've done quite a bit of different things.

The written-in-stone practice in swimming is that there is a cool-down after pool races, and after a meet session. It's been done for decades. I even had my swimmers do it. In the college swimming setting, it was probably more about having everyone available to be on-deck during the meet sessions to cheer teammates on. The threat of the 500y "team cool-down" kept everyone on-deck and in their suits. However, as a masters swimmer and open-water swimmer in the years since, I never once cooled-down, and I ended up doing pretty well.

The problems with swimming cool-downs are that swimmers dread getting back in and getting cold and wet again. In the context of training, a slow swim just for "garbage yardage" often reinforces really bad habits. I've seen teams end a practice with a determined set, say 10 x 50 @ :45, do it slow enough to "wind down," but not so slow that you goof around.

Another problem with swimming being in the discussion is that swimming doesn't use postural muscles, and once back on land, those muscles tend to be fresh. So me walking away from a 12-mile, 4:50 OWS (true story) was easier than any 3:00 training run I ever ran.

I think the only real benefit of a cool-down in swimming is that swimmers in their $300 suits can jump into a pool between events at a meet and pee in the pool. Let's be honest. They've been well-hydrated, and those suits are a hassle to get on and off. Others just go into the shower and pee.

I've usually been too worn out after my marathons or IM to do any sort of cool-down, other than hobbling to medical or the beer tent. After training runs or rides, I just stop and head home.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [140triguy] [ In reply to ]
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At meets, I’ll usually skip any post meet warmdown, but I do find that mid-meet warmdown are beneficial when I have multiple events during a session. Typically it’s very easy swim/drill and kicking.

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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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Physically, I dunno. Mentally, there's good research that you're more likely to be consistent with your workouts when your workouts end on a positive note. That post-interval jog around the track with your friends ends the workout on a very positive note and makes you want to come back the next week.

Leave the track with your lungs on fire and drive home panting and sweating all over the place, and you're less likely to have a positive association heading into the next workout.


<The Dew Abides>
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [dewman] [ In reply to ]
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There's the whole shower thing. If you enjoy warm showers, then you have to cool down after hard work. Otherwise your warm shower has you continue sweating and makes you still nasty getting dressed afterwards.

I notice if I spin at just 100w or so in front of the fan for 5 minutes (I usually already turned the computer off) then I can enjoy a warm shower and not sweat the second I put my clothes on. Usually I do this to figure out a good title for the activity and check on my TSS and metrics.

Also, Sky is showing off those smart trainers and putting on a show for fans/media. Ain't nobody watching my sorry sweaty ass cool down at the gym. They're probably hoping I don't do a cool down so the smell goes away sooner.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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trail wrote:
Team Sky and their marginals gains doctrine has re-popularized the cooldown, and now most World Tour teams have their teams on trainers in front of the team bus after races, doing long cool-downs.

And I've long heard the maxim about "clearing the lactic acid from your system," from back in my high school track days.

But are cooldowns actually worthwhile?

Some relatively recent research: Do We Need a Cool-Down After Exercise? A Narrative Review of the Psychophysiological Effects and the Effects on Performance, Injuries and the Long-Term Adaptive Response.

That survey sure couldn't find much benefit, though admits there's still a lot that's not known, and hasn't been studied.

For me it has some purely subjective value as a time so socialize about a workout, if in a group. And after races it provides a chance to slowly step down from the wired state that at least I tend to get into while racing.

But it sure would help time efficiency to just skip it the rest of the time.

I'm not sure what exactly you'll accept as negative or affirmative, but the answers you're going to get here will be sparse on empirical data. Just as an example, the peer reviewed literature regularly fails to demonstrate a positive and meaningful relation between performance and things like cryotherapy, compression, stretching and active recovery, but that doesn't stop people from advocating for the putative benefits.

---------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [trail] [ In reply to ]
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Your body doesn't make lactic acid.

And no, I don't cool down. But of course, I'm not getting paid and have other things to do. If someone paid me to cool down, I would.
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Re: The Cooldown: Is It Needed? [rubik] [ In reply to ]
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rubik wrote:
Your body doesn't make lactic acid.

And no, I don't cool down. But of course, I'm not getting paid and have other things to do. If someone paid me to cool down, I would.

I called the lactic acid thing a "maxim" for a reason!
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