Cooldowns: How important?

This is more of a self experiential preference for alot of us. Personally, after an interval workout I like to warm down similar to the warmup:

1-a mile easy

2-stretch easy for 5 minutes

3-5 x 100m fast

4-walk 5 min

5-stretch 3 minutes

6-jog/stride 100's/walk until the race or workout.

Obviously above^ is more of a race warmup. Before an interval workout cut out the walking and the second stretch.

Jr High and High School kids need to be forced to warm up properly. If not they'll just lounge around and do nothing! This is more important to me (before races), than the warm down. The gradual increasing of speed during the warm up is important.

I don't know any high school runner that wouldn't benefit from an extra 3 easy miles on meet days.

I watched a high school meet last week and I was surprised by how un-regimented most teams were. If I were coaching high school runners, I would make sure they do a 3 miles warm up + striders + a 3 mile cool down on race days. I also think this should be done as a team. It is a routine and the kids will cerainly benefit from the easy aerobic running. Incidentally, I would also have them wear uniform team clothing during warm-ups, rather than a random assortment of home-made slogan and/or PRE shirts.

Stipe touches upon the part of the "cool-down" that I as a coach find most useful after workout or races. That is the time atheletes talk to each other about what has just happened and what will happen in the future. I see the social value is greater than the physiological. I suppose if you have no teammates, you can just think.

Tom

Obviously you are not dealing with high school athletes on any level. The answer to your question is quite obvious. Yes, workouts must be tough, but I had to answer to the needs of the kids and the parents. I always wanted my athletes as close to total recovery before we got into the weight room each day.

Don't waste my time with your unproven and vague scientific theories. The Joe Newton I know, probably the best high school X-C ever, and you are on opposite ends of the spectrum.

This is a great question. It's one of those things where we only do it that way because it's always been done that way.

In high school they have you do cooldowns. In college they have you do cooldowns. Pro's do cooldowns. But we still don't know why? Incredible.

stipe wrote:

I don't know any high school runner that wouldn't benefit from an extra 3 easy miles on meet days.

I watched a high school meet last week and I was surprised by how un-regimented most teams were. If I were coaching high school runners, I would make sure they do a 3 miles warm up + striders + a 3 mile cool down on race days. I also think this should be done as a team. It is a routine and the kids will cerainly benefit from the easy aerobic running. Incidentally, I would also have them wear uniform team clothing during warm-ups, rather than a random assortment of home-made slogan and/or PRE shirts.

You don't think 3 mile warm-ups is a bit much for a 3 mile race....for high schoolers??

AND 3mile cooldowns? They'll feel like crap after every race. Maybeee they could run 12 minute pace.

Maybe.

It is a hard day already, so no, 9 total miles with 6 of it EASY is not too much. When I was in high school, we did around a 2+ mile warm-up and probably goofed around on a 1-2 mile cool down. This was a mistake. This 6-7 mile day should have been a 9 mile day. As I said, we all would have benefited from the easy aerobic running and the comaraderie.

Wasting your time with unproven and vague scientific theories? Where did I even mention a single one? Reread my message. Mr.Newton, no doubt a great HS coach, knows nothing of physiology and science. his results come from the sheer force of his personality and will. I should know, as I ran for Mr. Newton a number of years back.Who did you ever coach? How come I never heard of you if you coached for over 40 years?

I just got tired of doing cooldowns after many years. I am very familiar with the scientific research, and I could never find somebody who could tell me why a cooldown is truly important... It never made sense. So, I just stopped wasting my time doing them. Getting in another 1-2 miles of "aerobic" running is just junk mileage. I would rather add more miles to my sustained runs, not intermittent things here and there. I've run <31 in the 10K with no problems doing no cooldowns... Just walk around the track a little (less than 400m), sit around the track a little when I am done, walk to the car and leave.

ety wrote:

I am an assistant coach of a high school team, who is obsessed with trying to get the team to cooldown properly after a meet or a hard workout.

I try and emphasize the physiological necessity for a good long cooldown (5K)and that in the middle of the season they are losing their base and need a long cooldown to add needed mileage.

It's almost open rebellion when they are beat after a race and I am getting them back on their feet to get out there to cooldown.

How important is a cooldown after a meet and what are your reasons for doing it?

Sorry, I had to read that again. THREE MILES cool down??? Are you NUTS????

AND using the cooldown to add mileage is wrong, wrong, wrong. A cool down is what it says - not an excuse to add miles.

Renato Canova's words from the cherono thread:

"My athletes do normally a short cooldown after very hard workouts on track, but very easy (no longer than 10 minutes for about 2 km). In any case, I let them free to do what they think better, because I don't believe that it is really important. If I can chose, I prefer a pre-warm up (running for example 30:00 very easy 2-3 hours before a tough training) that a cooldown. What I see is that many athletes give a lot of importance to something that is not significative, losing a correct focus related with what is really important in training for improving."

drFil wrote:

Been to meets where a 1500 elite racers were doing a bunch (like 10) of 150s like an hour after for a wormdown.

They weren't warming down, they were getting some work in. In other words, the goal was to get faster for future races, not to recover from the race they'd just run.

Lots of people use the warm-down as a way of getting a few extra miles in. It's not a bad idea -- generally you shouldn't be working out so hard that you're totally wiped after your workouts all the time. And on those occasions when you really do go deep to the well, then you might want to cut the warmdown short -- the balance of what's more useful shifts to recovery in that case.

I am surprised with how many people here only use cooldowns to get extra mileage in. If I don't cooldown and stretch out a little after a race or hard workout my legs get really sore the next day especially in the hamstring area. If I do a 20 minute cooldown at 8+ minute pace, my legs will be fine.

This is so depressing. As someone else mentioned "take off your panties", your team has no respect for you. "How important" is, is not the problem, the problem is that they do not do what is required of them. Do your athletes get to pick which workouts that they want to do? Do the cooldown or turn in your uniform. These guys need some authority and direction, not some whiny bitch nagging them to please do their cooldown.

Chris Didiletic wrote:

You don't think 3 mile warm-ups is a bit much for a 3 mile race....for high schoolers??

AND 3mile cooldowns? They'll feel like crap after every race. Maybeee they could run 12 minute pace.

Maybe.

We had a local 5k race recently with prize money sufficient to attact a carload of West Chester based Kenyans, one of whom won in 14 flat. After the race, as I was doing what I considered a slow jogging cooldown, I was surprised to see how slowly some of these really fast guys were running their cooldown. Maybe not 12 minute pace, but well over 10.

Getting back to the original question, I do like to jog the course as a warmup, generally going very slowly for the first two miles and then throwing some strides and maybe a quarter mile at race pace in the last. For a cooldown, I try to keep moving, walking or slow jog for at least 10 minutes. I do about the same for my harder workouts.