The Cool Down Process
Ok, so you’ve read the previous two post on why you should stop stretching and how to warm-up without it. If you haven’t then you can go here and here. For those that are now on board (or previously on board) about not stretching before a physical activity, you may still believe that stretching after a workout is ok and even necessary. So, I’m here to debunk that too… because why not?!
As you probably guessed, I’m not a fan of stretching as part of the cool-down process for several reasons, not all of them having specifically to do with stretching the muscle.
NO NO NO NO NO……JUST NO!
The Cool Down Process
After your class, rehearsal, or performance, your muscles are tired - hopefully in a good way, not like I can barely make it home kind of way. When muscles are tired or fatigued, they are also weaker and slower. (FYI, that’s usually when injuries happen. It’s always that last run or rep, right?). So why on earth would you then want to pull on them and make them even weaker? It makes no sense. Read this post on how that happens.
The incorrect idea is that your muscles are warm and by stretching you can can increase your flexibility, which I’ve mentioned before, yes that will happen. However, increased flexibility without strength will just increase your risk of injury. And we already discussed in the previous posts about how stretching makes you weaker, therefore stretching after dancing will just make your body even more prone to injury. Plus, after your body actually cools down, you’ve pretty much lost the flexibility anyways because your muscles were never strong enough to maintain that new range of motion.
So what do you do?
As the name implies, you want to cool down your internal body temperature. Just as you gradually increased the temperature, you want to gradually decrease it. Just like going from 0 to 100 mph is not good, going from 100mph to 0mph is not good either. You need to give your body time to adjust down to its resting state.
Why?
Well, you want to give your body time to clear away any waste that your muscles may have produced while moving intensely. You want to give the fluid in your joints time to return to their less viscous state. You want your oxygen levels to return to normal. You want your muscles recruitment to be appropriate for day to day living. And probably, more importantly, you want your blood to keep flowing and not just stagnate in any one area of the body. This requires your heart to continue pumping and slowly decrease the beats per minute. If you just drop to the floor to stretch and don’t move, you’re really hindering that entire cardiovascular and muscular system.
So the best way to recover from all of this is just…
Do your warm-up again!
And the best part is, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Just do the same general warm-up routine again (not the APSM) but this time start with your medium pace and gradually slow it down. This ensures your body has time to adjust down to its resting state.
HOLD ON, our muscles are tired and you are saying I should do more muscle work?!?!?!
Yes, but do it slower and with control.
Because when you dance, or rehearse, or perform, you tend to use certain muscles more than others, either because the dance routine has a gazillion right spins and only one left spin, or you only do high kicks with your right and not your left leg, or you naturally like to compensate with certain (ahem, overworked) muscles. So doing a good cool down that takes your whole body, symmetrically, through your entire range of motion in a gradually decreasing pace can help re-balance those overworked and underworked muscles. And since the warm-up is only 10-15 mins long, and you’re only going to do a section of it to cool down, then the cool down can be shorter and less fatiguing. If you really can’t perform your cool down because of time, space, or energy then going on walk is just as effective to keep the blood moving (not necessarily working those muscles symmetrically and purposefully) and simple. The point is, don’t just abruptly stop moving.
And for the love of you body, don’t stretch!
Thanks for reading!
If you found this post helpful please feel free to repost or sharing with your fellow dancers.
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~ Rebecca xoxo
