Training benefit of not doing a warm down?

littlemsfickle

So I started back training with a competitive swimming club a few weeks ago and was a bit surprised when after a tough two hour session everybody else headed straight for the changing rooms instead of doing a warm down. I asked the coach about it and he said "sometimes we like to skip the warm down and keep a bit of lactate in the body". Actually most of the other swimmers never seem to do a warm down, even after finishing on sprints. I've never heard of this before and especially as I'm training for triathlon and will often have another session planned for later in the day, I think a few minutes warming down is generally a good idea. Does anyone here know of any training benefit to finishing a session with lactate still in the body?

Raighne

littlemsfickle wrote: »

So I started back training with a competitive swimming club a few weeks ago and was a bit surprised when after a tough two hour session everybody else headed straight for the changing rooms instead of doing a warm down. I asked the coach about it and he said "sometimes we like to skip the warm down and keep a bit of lactate in the body". Actually most of the other swimmers never seem to do a warm down, even after finishing on sprints. I've never heard of this before and especially as I'm training for triathlon and will often have another session planned for later in the day, I think a few minutes warming down is generally a good idea. Does anyone here know of any training benefit to finishing a session with lactate still in the body?

In short: I think the reasons behind this approach are spurious at best.

There's a few things I'd need clarified to answer this correctly but I will give it a try (the first thing is that a two-hour session would not normally leave any lactate in the body: exercise over that period of time is mainly aerobic. If it is anaerobic it would require long breaks and that would lower the level of acidosis in the muscles during the workout so it doesn't leave a big residue after).

Firstly, though, the problem with hard sessions is not that they leave lactate in the working muscles. Lactate is harmless. It is that they leave acidosis (the by-products of lactate metabolism such a hydrogen ions) which lowers the working pH. Without getting too scientific it is this acidosis that your body adapts to by creating more buffers (such as calcium) to neutralise it. This is one of the adaptations that allows you to sustain anaerobic exercise for slightly longer.

Cooldowns do indeed seem to flush out these acidic waste-products and promote a more rapid recovery. Not performing a cooldown then logically has the opposite effect: keeping the waste products in there and hampering rapid recovery.

This technique is used in intervals: when you jog your recoveries you are actually recovering quicker from acidosis because of increased blood flow. This is why, in Lydiard training, you begin your intervals with jogging recoveries ("floats") to ease into anaerobic training when your buffers are at their weakest. After a few sessions you either shorten the recovery, use inactive recoveries (e.g. standing around) or both to stop acidic waste product from being flushed out of the muscles and lowering the pH more aggressively.

By this way you are triggering the adaptations you are looking for and it is generally accepted that it takes very little relative volume to achieve this effect and that going for a little less than necessary is almost always wiser than going for a bit more than necessary. The above approach (not knowing the detailed reasoning) flies in the face of that and seems unnecessary. Any additional adaptations you may get from keeping the body's pH lowered for longer are very likely outmatched by slower recovery, more time needed before the next quality session and overall poorer health during the period (a low blood pH messes with sleep, hormonal levels, immune system, you name it).

RoyMcC

So that's a 'no' then Rene?

Raighne

RoyMcC wrote: »

So that's a 'no' then Rene?

Yes