Active cooldowns are another thing you might've been told to do as part of your fitness plan.
These active cooldowns, unlike simply resting, aka passive cooldown, can be many different
activities.
It can be a simple light jog, light rowing, some lightweight resistance exercises, a light
swim, or walking lightly through a shallow pool.
The goal here is to continue some sort of physical movement after your training session.
But what exactly is the benefit of doing so versus simply sitting down or standing still?
Well, active cooldowns have been touted to improve performance in subsequent training
sessions.
Some believe it can also reduce injury chances, improve muscle soreness recovery, prevent
you from experiencing lightheadedness, and various other benefits.
However, the research overall doesn't seem to exactly support these claims.
Much of this is covered in a 2018 research review by Hooren and Peake, where they analyzed
the current scientific literature on active cooldowns.
For performance measures, in studies looking at outcomes in both same-day and next-day
settings, active cooldowns did not have any meaningful impact.
When there were any performance gains over passive cooldown, it applied to well-seasoned
athletes only.
We know through past research that such athletes respond very differently to recovery, so it's
not clear how this would translate to the Average Joe.
Either way, any benefit, regardless of the subjects, was statically insignificant.
Be advised, though, as well, that the studies primarily measured high-intensity performances
like vertical jumps or sprinting.
Benefits for the endurance-type training remain to be seem.
We see a similar outcome for muscle soreness.
Active cooldowns did not show any significant advantage over passive and, again, any small
benefit applied mostly to well-trained subjects.
Some even found an INCREASE in soreness, likely from the additional fatigue incurred from
the active cooldown itself.
Same goes for indirect muscle recovery markers, like creatine kinase and muscle voluntary
isometric force contraction, where active cooldowns don't seem to change much of these
recovery factors.
And again, much of the same is seen in terms of injury.
Cooling down just doesn't seem to reduce any injury incidences in any significant capacity.
There is, however, one catch here.
Injury research on cooldowns were repeatedly paired with warmups and stretching, which
might have impacted the results, for better or for worse.
However, warmups and stretching are supposedly injury-preventing factors themselves, so it
stands to reason, although not with full certainty, that cooldowns alone wouldn't fare much
better.
Now with our enhanced understanding, let's pose the question: are active cooldowns at
all necessary?
As much as active cooldowns have been highly suggested around fitness and sports circles,
its actual benefits are much less substantial.
If you're just the regular gym goer that do not have time to dedicate an extra 15 to
30 minutes to an active cooldown, then a simple rest should be just fine.
Active cooldowns aren't exactly necessary.
However, if an active cooldown is something you find perhaps mentally beneficial, then
it might be fine if you continue to do it for the sake of a sort of psychological placebo.
After all, although it doesn't seem to have much clear benefits, it also doesn't seem
to do any type of harm.
That being said, I still would like to know what you think of active cooldowns.
Is it something you do and how much has been helpful to you?
If you found this video helpful, please make sure to give it a thumbs up and share it with
your cooldown-loving friends.
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As always, thank you for watching and GET YOUR PROTEIN!
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