I know cooling down is important after vigorous exercise, but exactly why?
Also, how close to resting should your respiration rate be at the end of the cool down, and is this margin different for different people?
The reason I ask is that my brother came in from a jog ending in a sprint, and he was sitting down breathing fairly quickly. I told him he should have cooled down and he said he did walk for 4 minutes after his 1/8 mile sprint. I told him his respirations were too frequent to have cooled down and he said he was fine the way he was. I’m sure his health was not in imminent danger, but I still believe that if you respirations are still really high, that one should continue to cool down for a longer period of time, for the sake of returning slowly to normal pressure. Are respirations a good audio-visual cue to determine status of cool down or can you only determine this from checking blood pressure?
The usual explanation is that cooling down helps pump lactic acid (which builds up in your muscles during rigorous exercise) out of your muscles and into your bloodstream for elimination. This will help reduce muscle soreness the next day. That’s the theory I’ve always heard, anyway.
I agree with you that a sufficient cooling down period probably should be long enough to get your breathing rate back to normal.
A better indication of whether it’s ok to sit down is heart rate. If your pulse is significantly above your resting rate, you’re probably not cooled down yet.
hmm. i usually do not cool down, and that is after 1 hr of biking on a machine with the intensity set pretty high (it says im burning about 900 cals/hr doing it but i think that could be wrong). ive never had muscle soreness.
however after i bike its not like i lie down and do nothing, i walk to the locker room, shower, then walk out to the car. This takes about 15 minutes total. Maybe that is the same thing as a cool down to my body.
Soreness and muscle recovery aside, I am talking about a strain on the system from having your heart still in a raging pump while you are just sitting there, if there even is such a “strain”…
I believe that, esp. after an aerobic activity like running, your body needs time to adjust to the fact that it no longer has your powerful leg muscles aiding in circulating your blood. ISTR that you can pass out from the BP drop (usu. if you just ran a GREAT distance, mind you). Let me see if I can find a cite.
Another reason besides the lactic acid buildup is to avoid blood pooling.
During exercise the muscles assist mechanically in pumping blood throughout your body. If you are doing a particularly strenuous exercise and suddenly stop, the muscle pumping assistance stops. Blood can actually slow down to the point that it can cause dizziness, fainting, and nausea.
Now, what are the characteristics (pulse, respirations, time, ect.) of a proper cool down which will prevent the blood from pooling? For example, let’s say you ran a 3 mile race as fast as you could while finishing it off with an all out sprint… what pulse and resp. rate would be sufficient to end your cool down and plop on the couch?