Even if you’re the strongest or the fastest athlete in town, you can’t deny that preparation is key to working out efficiently. When you exercise, you push your body to its limit, which can increase the chances of getting injuries. While warming up is paramount in mitigating the chances of accidents from happening, cooldown exercises are as crucial in keeping your muscles from becoming too sore. You wouldn’t want to go to work limping, would you?
As the name suggests, cooling down is designed to stabilize the heat of your body. It won’t take you five to ten minutes to do a cooldown on the same spot that you’re working out on. Compared to warming-up, which is about getting your body conditioned for exercise, cooling down is about minimizing the soreness of your muscles and getting them into a state where they can easily heal.
How to Cool Down
So how do you accomplish it after some rigorous exercises? In fast-paced environments, individuals who want to work out will need to find creative ways of cooling down without consuming too much time. Here are some known ways of getting your muscles to relax.
Stretching
Stretching is by far one of the most common forms of cooling down your body. Compared to more active warm-ups that have a more active type of stretching, cooldowns will usually incorporate light aerobics and sustained static stretching. The static nature of the movement will help release lactic acids in the muscles that amplify the soreness of your muscles.
If you’re in a hurry, don’t worry. This type of cooldown will usually take around ten to 20 minutes. Coupled with a ten or 15-minute shower, you’ll feel fresh and ready to take on your day.
Cold Showers
In a place like Singapore that has tropical weather, cold showers are quite popular and a common way of cooling down. No matter how worked-up you are after the toughest workout, you can always rely on an innervating cold shower.
If you’ve got some important work right after working out, this kind of showers is an excellent way of improving your awareness, stabilizing your heart rate, and removing any excess heat. It only takes a couple of minutes, and you’ll be ready to resume your daily tasks.
Whether you dread getting a cold shower in the morning or you prefer warm steamy showers during colder weather, you can’t deny that it’s a good way of reducing soreness on your muscles right after working out. Hot showers might help during colder climates, but if you’ve got a long day ahead of you, energizing cold showers are a better choice.
Saunas
This method of cooling down is all about transitioning between warming up and cooling down, which helps rid your body of excess heat. Saunas can be a bit more time-consuming than other forms of cooling down. If you don’t have anything else to do, you can kick back, relax, and strike up a conversation with whoever is there. Usually, saunas are followed with an energizing cold shower to close down your pores.
Post-Workout Massages
If you’ve got some time and money to spare right after working out, getting a massage will feel like heaven. Since working out is about providing your muscles with the necessary amount of pressure, massages are a great way of reducing any inflammations on your muscles while mitigating soreness. After getting a massage, wait for at least 24 hours right before participating in any rigorous forms of exercise to avoid overstraining your muscles.
Consider getting a 60-minute massage that’s tailored towards muscle relaxation. Some of the best ones that involve stretching and pressure points are the Thai massage and Japanese Shiatsu massage. A hot stone massage will also improve your focus as you let your muscles relax. Even though massages are a suitable way of reducing atrophied muscles, that should also be limited to at least two times a week to regulate muscle growth.
Even though massages might take up at least an hour of your day, it’s time that you need to spend for yourself. After all, if you plan on working hard, you need to keep yourself in peak condition.
Physiotherapy
There will be times that right after some rigorous exercises, your muscles will still feel sore for days. Cooling down might help mitigate your chances of getting sore muscles. However, if you’re not sure what type of cooldown exercises that you should be doing, you can always go to a reliable physiotherapy clinic.
No matter how strong or fast you are, injuries can still happen in the playing court and field. Some of them are more discreet than others and won’t show up until it’s serious. To mitigate these types of injuries, regularly visiting your physiotherapist can give your body up to speed.
There are different ways of cooling down your body when you are doing rigorous forms of exercise. But it’s also important to remember that you are exercising to build up that dream body that you’ve been striving for. So remember to take it easy. What matters is that there is progress on what you are doing.
