How important is a cooldown jog after hard running?

I heard someone looked in to it. His name is Magness.

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2012/09/rethinking-cool-down-and-xc-coach-at.html

Has anyone checked whether Magness has written on this??

It seems like there was something in Magness's book about it but I don't remember. It might be on his blog as well.

I think it was Katniss, not Magness, but point stands

The studies they do for fitness have a big flaw. They usually test random people that are not trained athletes. For these people after a hard workout they do not benefit from a cooldown because it adds more stress from which they can not recover from.

For a trained runner the added stress is very little but the benefits of added mileage, blood flow to muscles, mental relaxation and aerobic work is huge.

Think about how you feel after a tough 10 x 400 workout. the cooldown helps you mentally breakdown what you just accomplished. Team bonding also! You also learn to run with tired legs. the best Cooldown is at a quick pace. A 5 min miler should be at around 7 min mile pace. No more than 2 miles.

"Cooling down" has utterly no benefit either in terms of recovery nor conditioning. It is another stupid, unfounded, superstition concocted by crackpot coaches. Warming up, while perhaps not completely useless like "cooling down," is also highly overrated.

......the last sentence.

Love of Lactate wrote:

"Cooling down" has utterly no benefit either in terms of recovery nor conditioning. It is another stupid, unfounded, superstition concocted by crackpot coaches. Warming up, while perhaps not completely useless like "cooling down," is also highly overrated.

easy weeks wrote:

A coach I worked with for a while told me that it was bad to end a hard run/intervals abruptly because a cool down jog helped clear lactate / acid, aiding in general overall recovery with less residual soreness and heavy legs.

A long-debunked myth. Acidosis isn't related to soreness.

Cooling down makes you look like a serious athlete. If you stay at the track running reverse laps, people will think, "there goes a competitor with a highly structured training program." Novices will see you and soon they will be doing it too. That's probably how it all got started, once long ago someone figured "hell, I'll jog around a while longer." Then other people copied them, and they eventually were copied themselves, and so forth until today.

Why jog recoveries, warm-up & cool downs?

It made me faster. That is all.

It helps you taper into your EPOC, so your metabolism following your workout is operating most effectively to absorb the benefits of training.

Seriously??? wrote:

Proper warmups are obviously very important. But what constitutes a proper cooldown? Every now and then due to time constraints I have had to jump into the car or house right after hard running, and I don't feel like I missed something important. I need to stay mobile after such running, ie walk the dog or walk to a store vice just sitting around.

But what do I really miss if I don't jog 10min after hard running?

Your thoughts are very much appreciated, letsrun.

(PS: yes, I am an experienced competitive runner.)

I always enjoy doing a good walk after hard running (outdoors). Usually it's incidental (like having no other choice) but it's a great time for reflection and enjoying being out there instead of just "point a to point b.". It seems common to do a wind down jog after interval workouts on tracks or road hills or grass course. I don't think these are, btw functionally the same as a recovery run 8-30 hours after.

Does a transfusion negate the need for a cooldown?

Steve Magness

Hey Kevin,

Transfusions actually demand more reason for a cooldown, because they really make you dizzy. Plus it's nice to get the "new" blood flowing through the system. After a normal workout, a cooldown is not necessary. After a transfusion, you bet.

Live Strong,

-Lance

Sorry to tell you fools but your cool down should be HILLS HILLS run sprint HILLS HILLS..its indoor track. Do crab walks up hills sprint hills with 1 minute rest. Hills that's all you need . That's the ticket cartwheels up hills. HILLS HILLS HILLS, all of you are wrong...DO HILLS I KNOW cause I ran against Connor!

how do i feel after a race or a workout as experience teaches, if...

...i have to hurry or feel bad (no cool down)? well, i will survive.

...i add some extra miles (slow cool down)? even better, i think.

...i do strides or hill sprints at the end? i always think, this is the best.

I am wondering the same thing myself too.

Will there be any extra benefits of running a relatively long cool-down (i.e: 3-4 miles or even longer), say, adaptation to running on a tired legs, and at low glycogen levels, apart from recovery/stretching my legs out.

agip wrote:

I'm not going to go search for it, but there has been at least one good study that found no benefit to a cool down. Doesn't mean there is no benefit - just that the study didn't find one.

So, the list of unproven things LD runners do is pretty long:

stretching

wear orthotics

wear stability shoes

cool down

take ice baths

ice injuries

funny - I've believed in each of these at one point or another. Keep in mind the placebo effect is real.

You would have to take these "studies" with a grain of salt. Coming from a hard science background, these so called studies are a complete joke.

"Proper warmups are obviously very important"Are they? Proof?

Seriously??? wrote:

Proper warmups are obviously very important. But what constitutes a proper cooldown? Every now and then due to time constraints I have had to jump into the car or house right after hard running, and I don't feel like I missed something important. I need to stay mobile after such running, ie walk the dog or walk to a store vice just sitting around.

But what do I really miss if I don't jog 10min after hard running?

Your thoughts are very much appreciated, letsrun.

(PS: yes, I am an experienced competitive runner.)