My coach today told me that cooling down at the end of practice was not good for the body. He said it could rip muscles that were just worked. I have always been taught that the cool down was important, especially after working hard and getting the heart rate up.
Keep in mind that this is an USA-S practice and those I'm swimming with are teenagers.
I'm curious what others think?
We do a lot of exercise testing on Children and teens in my pulmonary function lab. It became apparent early on that if we let the kids stop (either bike or treadmill) suddenly when their heart rates were up in the 190-200 range, some of them were going to have sharp drops in their blood pressure, dizziness, near fainting and (twice) vomiting. Some of them had a "vasovagal" response with slow heart rate too.
Now I don't let them off until their heart rates are under 120. If you stop exercising quickly, all of your blood vessels are dilated and your blood pressure can fall. Seems like teens are more prone to this.
This is, I believe, a separate reason for a cool down than the lactate issue (which seems valid as well).
I personally had two episodes of brief near loss of consciousness after sudden cessation of exercise in my teenage years. One after trying out for the swim team at 13 -- a hard w/o and then seeing spots in the car; and the second one when I was 17 and trying to beat my dad running through a nautilus circuit (back when those things were new) -- I woke up looking at the ceiling. Doesn't seem to happen the same way now that I am middle age and my arteries are stiffer.
Anyways -- not an expert but I can't see that cool down is bad.
We do a lot of exercise testing on Children and teens in my pulmonary function lab. It became apparent early on that if we let the kids stop (either bike or treadmill) suddenly when their heart rates were up in the 190-200 range, some of them were going to have sharp drops in their blood pressure, dizziness, near fainting and (twice) vomiting. Some of them had a "vasovagal" response with slow heart rate too.
Now I don't let them off until their heart rates are under 120. If you stop exercising quickly, all of your blood vessels are dilated and your blood pressure can fall. Seems like teens are more prone to this.
This is, I believe, a separate reason for a cool down than the lactate issue (which seems valid as well).
I personally had two episodes of brief near loss of consciousness after sudden cessation of exercise in my teenage years. One after trying out for the swim team at 13 -- a hard w/o and then seeing spots in the car; and the second one when I was 17 and trying to beat my dad running through a nautilus circuit (back when those things were new) -- I woke up looking at the ceiling. Doesn't seem to happen the same way now that I am middle age and my arteries are stiffer.
Anyways -- not an expert but I can't see that cool down is bad.
