Whether you are a fitness enthusiast or a beginner who is learning workouts, you all know that a workout session consists of three parts: warm-up, exercise sets, and cooling down. All three have equal importance, and if you ignore any of the one, you may not obtain the results that you desire.
Warming up is necessary to get your muscles flexible so that you will not face any difficulty while doing exercise sets. Consisting of simple cardio and stretching exercises, it will prepare your body and heart to withstand the pressure and sweat developed during exercise.
And here is where you may be tempted to stop your regime without cooling down your body. However, cooling down is as essential as warming your body.
While doing exercise, your heart rate spikes up greatly due to the strenuous workouts. And getting your heart abruptly to normal pace will have adverse effects on your body like dizziness and fainting. Hence, you need to bring your heart rate gradually down so that your body will become relaxed and able to function normally.
And the best part is, you don’t have to spend more time in cooling your body. Like warm-up, it needs at least 3 – 10 minutes of slow, relaxing exercises.
Now, we will take you through some of the benefits and cooling down exercises that you can follow by after a heavy workout session:
Benefits Of Cooling Down: Why It’s Necessary
1. Slowly bringing your heart rate to normal
After doing heavy cardio or any workout session, your heart pumps faster and the number of heartbeats per minute will be higher than usual. So, you need to bring it a normal pace. However, suddenly stopping your body movements will take a toll on your heart. You may feel shivering, dizziness, and worse, you may faint even.
Coming from fast pumping to normal pumping requires time and you need to give that time by cooling your body gradually. Do stretching or simply walk for three minutes to ensure that your heart is not taking too much effort to beat at a normal pace.
2. To lower the temperature of your body
You might have observed how your body temperature rises dramatically that you begin to sweat, wetting your workout clothes. It’s because of the rise in the inside temperature. When your heart pumps, it releases heat into your body by which temperature rises.
After the workout session, you will feel how your whole seems to be boiling. Though you work out in an air-conditioned room, you will distinctly feel the temperature rise in your body.
Cooling down, as the name specifies, decreases your body temperature gradually so that you like normal self. As the temperature suddenly cannot drop to an optimum level, you need to decrease it through a set cool down exercises.
3. Gradually slowing down the breathing
Even the breathing changes during workout sessions and you take large gulps of air as your heart is beating faster. Cooling down gives you control over your breathing. From erratic breathing to normal inhaling and exhaling – cooling down exercises will help you return to your normal state without feeling any abnormality.
4. Improved relaxation
You feel tempted to fall on your bed and go to relaxed sleep after the workout session. However, that’s not the right way.
Your body becomes excited and it is high-functioning after the exercise session. If you sit or sleep without cooling your body, you will feel discomfort and uneasiness in your heart. To avoid it, you need to make your body function at a normal pace, like how you do your routine chores. And cooling down exercises will help you achieve it.
5. For muscles to regain optimum tension
Your muscles stretch to their maximum limit while you exercise. The tension in them becomes so high that after doing exercise, you will not be able to walk or hold things properly. So, to reach their optimum state, you have to do cool down which helps you to gain the ideal control over your muscles. The tension in them becomes less and you will function without any difficulty.
Cooldown Exercises You Can Follow
Walking: It is the best form to cool down your body without any effort. Slow walk for three minutes by concentrating on your breathing.
Stretches: there is a different form of stretch exercises that help to make your body normally again. Available for both hands and legs, you can stretch on the mat or by standing alone.
Moreover, the kind of cool-down exercises depends on the type of work out you did.
For running: after jogging, without coming to a complete halt, do a brisk walk for a few minutes and normally walk. And then you can do stretches to cool down entirely.
For strength training: you need to do full body stretches to increase the motion in your joints. For example, if you did biceps and triceps strength training, you can biceps and triceps stretches to cool down.
Yoga poses: Yoga, the historical and effective form of lifestyle, has some of the cool down exercises like savasana, which means to lie down flat on your stomach for a few minutes.
Let’s Do Healthy Exercise During This Covid-19 Pandemic
With no access to gyms and other outdoor structures, home is where you should do the exercises. So, let’s keep our exercise regimes healthy. Start with a warm-up, do a list of healthy home exercises, and then make sure to cool down your body. Let’s stay home, stay safe, and stay healthy.
Author Bio:
Hi, I am Mike Morleye. As a professional writer, I put together my writing skills to share knowledge on diverse topics in a readable, understandable and appealing format.
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