Cool Downs For Mountaineers In Training

Inside this episode, we explore the ideas of cool-downs during training and why I believe they are overrated in most situations. 

Episode Transcript:

​[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking about probably the most overrated area of any training program

[0:11] out there, the cool down. Now, if you've done any type of reading or researching or education around training or fitness, you will probably have come across people saying certain things like it's really, really important for you to cool down after training. Or you need to cool down after training to help reduce the chance of injury. Or cooling down after training will prevent muscle soreness or prevent aches and pains. Or a bunch of other situations like that. That type of stuff gets taught in personal trainer certifications. If you go online, read articles or videos, whatever it may be, these statements get thrown around all the time. And when we're talking about cooldowns, typically what these involve is just doing some light, gentle exercise at the end of a workout. So doing your workout in the last five or 10 minutes, doing a gentle walk or a gentle cycle, or maybe some stretching or some breathing or whatever it may be, just something light and gentle. And I'll say right now, to be really, really clear, if you enjoy doing this, there's nothing wrong with spending time cooling down. If you enjoy it, if it makes you feel good, and if you have time to do this, cool. Go for it. Absolutely.

[1:25] But one thing I want to be really, really, really clear about today, which tends to get like overlooked and it doesn't get said enough is by no means a cool down necessary.

[1:37] And in all honesty, it probably isn't very important. And if you were ever in a situation with your training where you were wondering, hey, should I squeeze in five more minutes of training during this session? Or do I need to sort of use these last five minutes to focus on a cool down before I finish off, 99% of the time, I would say, just do the extra five minutes of training. Why? Well, as I said before, cool downs are just not really very important. They get blown out of proportion around how necessary they are, but they don't really do a huge amount. They're not going to be doing anything major or really anything to reduce your risk of injury, no matter how many people say this. It's not dangerous if you finish the session and you just want to jump straight in the shower and then get on with your day.

[2:26] And in all honesty, they're probably not going to do a huge amount to reduce muscle soreness or make any difference to your recovery. And if you were worried about muscle soreness or recovery, I would argue that if you took that five or 10 minutes that you were thinking about with a cool down and did a little bit of active recovery later in your day in a few hours or at night or before bed or whatever it may be, that would have a dramatically larger effect for any type of soreness or recovery. So if you've always wondered about this, or if you've worried about this, or you do cool down religiously, but you're just like, oh my gosh, I cannot be arsed. This is permission now. You can skip it. The only, only, only time, the tiniest percentile of people who I would say this is absolutely essential for is if you have some type of, I guess, medical situation or condition where you may get dizzy after exercise or have blood pressure issues or something where you struggle to regulate going from like high stimulus to kind of back to normal. And that causes issues for you. So, if your doctor or your specialist has said something like this saying, hey, for you, it is very important that you ease out of things and cool down, then as always, medical advice trumps mine.

[3:44] But that's the small, small percentage. And the only other time that I would say, while it's not essential, but maybe I would encourage people to spend that time in a cool down is if you are say someone who has a really, really stressful life and you've got a really, really stressful life and you've actually just done a session, which is really difficult, a heavy strength session or an interval session or something that's been pretty stressful in itself. And in that situation, it may be worthwhile sacrificing five to 10 minutes of your training time to actually just lie down and just let the body and mind settle. So, you get a little bit of downtime to yourself somewhere in the day. And you can sort of finish up your training and enter other parts of the day in a bit of a better mindset. So, if you're living that super high stress life as well as high stress training, yeah, that may be worthwhile.

[4:31] But outside of that, in all honesty, not particularly necessary. So, if you are a Mountaineer and maybe you've always wondered about this and you've been feeling guilty that you always skip the cooldowns, even though people always tell you to do it, don't worry, it's not a big deal. Or if you have been doing these and you've been doing five to 10 minutes at every session, but it makes you feel restless or it feels like a waste of time or whatever it may be, totally fine, skip it. It's not a big deal. It's not going to make a difference. You are all good.

[4:59] So with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up there. I don't have too much more to say on this subject, but it is a little pet peeve of mine where I see people just harping on about, you have to do this, you have to do this, have to do this, and it doesn't really make a difference. So with that being said, I hope this gives a bit of clarity for a few people, maybe gives a few people permission to get back a bit more training time, and hopefully it helps. Last thing I will sort of say, as I always say on these podcasts, if you were a mountaineer who was interested in getting a little bit of personalized help for your training and finding the best way to spend your minutes available for your training to see the best results for the mountains, I would love to chat with you. If you want to find out a little bit more about our online personal training for mountaineers, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. On that page, there's a big video. You can learn a bit about our programs. And if it was something you want to explore a little bit further, there's a link on that page. You can book a call with our team. We can have a bit of a chat and see if and how we may be able to help you, your training, and your mountaineering. So if you want to learn a little bit more, go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer, and we can take it from there. So with that being said, thank you so much for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it, and we'll talk to you very, very soon.

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