By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

 In last week’s post we talked about the value and benefits of a proper warmup. This week we are going to delve into its first cousin: The Cooldown. The benefits of taking some time to regroup, especially after a hard workout, can’t be underestimated. Getting into your car and driving home right after your run should be minimized, if not extricated completely from your training routine.

The cooldown is the portion of your training that comes right after the hard work. Not only slowing down the last few minutes or miles but also mobility and stretching routines, breathing exercises and debriefings that occur once the hard part of your training program for the day has been performed. This will allow blood to return from the muscles to your heart, the excess lactate to be flushed out of your system, and start the process of getting you heart rate, body temperature and blood pressure back to their baselines.

The cooldown is the proper time for static stretching excises that should not be performed during warmup (Photo by Marcus Aurelius, Pexels.com)

According to Penn State’s Extension website, “Completing a cool-down is not only beneficial immediately after the completion of exercises but also helps prepare your body for future workouts. By stretching out those muscles and properly cooling down, you will be more prepared to exercise sooner rather than later. If your body does not cool down properly, it will take longer for you to feel up to exercising again.”

Steve Magness, former coach at the University of Houston and in my opinion, one of the brightest scientific minds in running, stated that the cooldown has two main goals: A – Returning your body and mind to a baseline, normal state. B – Assist in your body’s adaptation to the stress of the workout you just performed.

“You are shifting your body away from this breakdown-and-consume mode to a repair, rebuild, recover mode – explains Magness – You are trying to decrease the amount of stress hormones, which are great to prepare your body to do crazy things, and you are trying to get recovery hormones, such as testosterone, back.”

The cooldown is especially important after a hard race or a hard workout where you have almost depleted your body’s resources. For long-distance runners, a speed workout or a long run with a progression or pace intervals is a perfect example of when not to skip a cooldown, so you can reap all the benefits of what you just did.

“Even if you go for a 3-mile easy run –continues Magness— you are doing it in a state where your lactate is probably elevated, your glycogen levels are depleted, especially in certain muscle fibers; fatigue is lingering, etc. And you are still doing some work, so, because of that, you will be getting some kind of training adaptation.”

In a June 2021 article from Runner’s World, Ally Mazzerole, a breath work teacher at a mindfulness studio, recommends breathing exercises once your workout is over. And it doesn’t have to become an additional time-consuming element of your routine.

Simple breathing exercises can help you cool down without adding too much time to your workout (Photo: Monstera, Pexels.com)

“Breathwork can easily be incorporated during your cooldown stretching”, says Mazerolle. “It can be as simple as taking 10 to 15 slow inhales through your nose followed by slow exhales through your mouth, or something more intentional like box breathing, where you inhale for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, exhale for four counts, and hold there for four counts, then repeat.”

“This kind of practice is so important for runners because if running puts your body in a stress (or fight or flight) response. Breathwork stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system, relaxing the heart rate and signaling the body that it’s time to rest and digest and recover,” says Mazerolle. And that recovery period is when your body rebuilds and repairs itself from the stress of exercise.

When it comes to a longer cool down after a particularly hard race or workout, Jonathan Marcus, Head Coach at High Performance West, insists that it shouldn’t be perceived like additional mileage: “As we are coming back of a workout or a race, where we go in crescendo from low to high, now we are going from high to low, so the flush is an in-between bridge. It can be a very easy running, jogging, or walking. It is this ingenious workaround to get more of a training effect in a low intensity state. Sometimes it is the most difficult part of the workout because you are tired and fatigued.”

Of course, if you are not coming from a grueling training session, then a 10–15-minute jog, plus mobility and flexibility drills should suffice.

So, just as the warmup last week, make sure you make time for the cooldown. The benefits and the science back them up.