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?
Okay, I had a minute to talk to Marc today. He said the "no cool down" is really for the kids. He wants to tax their bodies in the mornings since they are coming back in 8 hours to do another practice. He said at night, he taxes them again so that they feel it the next morning. His reasoning is that most don't properly warm down after a meet and their bodies need to know how to work hard with little cool-down. Okay, I can understand that. He didn't mention "harm" to the body this time.
As I left practice today, he was giving the kids a pull set and mentioned no cool down for them. The kids had a 3 day meet this past weekend - the first meet of the season.
I'm with Stud in that I use the cool down as a chance relax in the water at the end of a practice. I blow out all the air and lower my heart rate.
I can understand that. Nevertheless kids also need cool down especially during the meets but if instead of easy swim they swim to hard (e.g to be faster than someone) there's no point in such warm-down it could even harm. In this case maybe I would substitute warm-down in the pool with some active stretching on a dry land.
Another point of course is that kids actually recover from lactate much faster than adults - it would be just a good habbit for them to learn for the future.
Okay, I had a minute to talk to Marc today. He said the "no cool down" is really for the kids. He wants to tax their bodies in the mornings since they are coming back in 8 hours to do another practice. He said at night, he taxes them again so that they feel it the next morning. His reasoning is that most don't properly warm down after a meet and their bodies need to know how to work hard with little cool-down. Okay, I can understand that. He didn't mention "harm" to the body this time.
As I left practice today, he was giving the kids a pull set and mentioned no cool down for them. The kids had a 3 day meet this past weekend - the first meet of the season.
I'm with Stud in that I use the cool down as a chance relax in the water at the end of a practice. I blow out all the air and lower my heart rate.
I can understand that. Nevertheless kids also need cool down especially during the meets but if instead of easy swim they swim to hard (e.g to be faster than someone) there's no point in such warm-down it could even harm. In this case maybe I would substitute warm-down in the pool with some active stretching on a dry land.
Another point of course is that kids actually recover from lactate much faster than adults - it would be just a good habbit for them to learn for the future.
