Cool down after workout

Author: Timko Ilya - master of the whole project and fitness trainer.
2016-12-22

Main Principles of Cooling Down

1. Cooling down after a workout is recommended but not mandatory. This means that if you don't do it, nothing serious will happen. However, if you do, your muscles will recover a bit faster due to increased blood flow.

2. The essence of cooling down is to stretch the muscles that worked during that training session. That's it. Nothing more needs to be done. If you trained only your arms, stretch only your arms. If you trained your whole body, then it's advisable to stretch the entire body. Accordingly, the cooling down time is short: 2 to 5 minutes.

3. Regardless of whether you do a cool-down or not, a mandatory element is to hang from a bar for 15-20 seconds with your back fully relaxed. This is especially important for those who have back issues (osteochondrosis, hernia, protrusion) or pain in the back. The fact is that almost all workouts put a load on the spine. When you hang, you stretch and decompress it.

4. The sequence of stretching (top to bottom or bottom to top) doesn't matter. That is, you can stretch the muscles in any order.

5. Stretching should be done until you feel a slight discomfort, no more than that.

6. It's better to stretch the same muscle a few times gently than to stretch it once painfully.

7. For specific techniques on how to stretch different muscle groups, check the video.