Trainer's Corner, Week 2

“Training When Not Training: Warm-up, Cool-Down, Recovery, and Rest”
By Joel Kim

Warm-up, cool-down, recovery, and rest are all often overlooked in some training programs. In fact, it is often neglected completely often not because people don’t want to do it, but is more because people are often not educated in this subject matter. Despite our busy schedules, our bodies were not designed for a difficult speed workout without a proper warm-up and recovery. In fact, we often expect to perform at the same level on a regular basis without a proper warm-up, cool-down, recovery, and rest. Unless you are a naturally gifted athlete—who will be considered a mutant by any biologist—you will most likely need time to build up to the main set in your warm-up and have a steady transition from your workout into your daily routine, your cool-down, recovery, and rest. Although a broken clock is always correct twice a day, in my opinion, I believe a paradigm shift will serve us in the long run in preparing for the race in October.

Warm-Up
Although I do not consider myself an expert, I want to provide some pointers on warm-up, cool-down, recovery, and rest. We’ll begin with a common topic: stretching. I will begin by stating that stretching is important for all the right reasons. Your skeletal muscles were meant to relax and to contract. Of the 4 pinnacles of fitness—strength, endurance, flexibility, and speed—regular stretching will increase your flexibility. Stretching will also reduce your chances for chronic or acute pain in your joints, reduce your chances of injury to your body, aid in your recovery, and improve your overall functional strength.

There are two different types of stretches, static and dynamic. The static stretch is when you hold a stretching position for a number of counts, and the dynamic stretch is the mimicking of the movement that is about to be performed in the day’s workout. How long to hold a static stretch? In the big picture, you want to hold the stretch longer AFTER the workout than when you stretched BEFORE the workout. There is not really a formula set in stone that works for everyone, because everyone’s biology, genetics, and running experience are different from each other. But if there is a standard, it is safe to say that a 10-second count is good enough before the workout and more than the 10-seconds after the workout. If someone was to ask if he/she can stretch TOO much, I will say yes. This is especially true BEFORE the workout. It’s because too much stretching will make you weaker. It will make your muscle contractions weaker and can even limit its capacity to contract powerfully. This is why the 10-second count is a good rule of thumb before the workout. After the workout, you can hold it longer. All in all, the best way to figure out what is too much or too little for you is to learn your body and to figure it out for yourself. Experience is the best teacher in this case.

Dynamic stretching is another method of stretching that I highly recommend for any athlete before his/her run workout. It is basically a motion that mimics the training that will take place during the training session. In the case of running, this includes swinging the leg forwards and backwards. You can also incorporate skipping, high knees, and grapevines for the lower body, as well as trunk rotations and arm swings for the mid and upper body, respectively. Dynamic stretching is not designed to be a workout in itself but to activate your body for action. This is also a great way to increase your heart-rate and to get the blood flowing. This can be done before or after your pre-workout static stretch.

While on the topic of pre-workout, you also want to have been hydrating regularly throughout the day before the hour of training, as well as eat in advance as common sense requires.

Cool-Down
After the workout, you need to have a cool-down. A cool-down is basically a steady slowing-down of your cardiovascular functions; you are trying to achieve a steady decrease in heart rate, breathing, and blood flow. In extreme cases, there are a very few stories of marathoners and ironman triathletes keeling over in a heart attack shortly after completing a race. Although this is due to BOTH a lack of a cool-down and dehydration, what happened in this rare case is that the heart-rate of the athlete quickly slowed down, the thicker flow of the dehydrated blood slowed down enough for a small blood clot to form, and the blood clot slowly traveled to the heart, causing a heart attack. Yes, this is an EXTREME example, but I hope to prove a point that a proper cool-down and dehydration can mean the difference between life and death, sometimes quite literally.

Toward the end of your cool-down is the time to revisit the static stretching. Hold the stretch for longer periods of time. Stretch your calves, quads, and hamstrings. But be especially sure to also stretch your hip flexors, glutes, lower back, arms, and shoulders. Although running seems like mostly leg work, these skeletal muscles were also actively involved to hold your running form and to give you strong running throughout your run workout. We will cover running form in a later time. A general pattern that I recommend for a cool-down static stretching session is to perform the stretches that require you to stand first and then work your way down to sitting and then lying down on the ground. This is a great time to rehydrate your body. We will also cover hydration at a later time.

Recovery
After the workout, you will have what’s called the Golden Window. This will aid in your recovery. The Golden Window is a window of opportunity to eat/drink something that is of nutritional value within 30 minutes after your workout and then 2 hours thereafter. This includes a sports drink, a protien shake, a piece of fruit, a sports bar, a goo, and even a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But whatever you choose to eat, the most important thing is that it is something that you like to eat and that you like the taste. It is a useless habit if your Golden Window is always an experience of anguish. In some cases, if it will take a Snickers Bar to hold you to that promise, than so be it. But candy is highly discouraged for all the right reasons. You must consume SOMETHING, and preferably something HEALTHY. Anything consumed BETWEEN the 30-minute and 2-hour windows or AFTER these windows, your body will not use any of its athletic benefits until 36 hours later.

With the issue of the Golden Window, although we are covering an aspect of sports nutrition, this is an invaluable tool to the runner/walker/cyclist in recovery from the day’s training. And unlike modern technology like emails, cell phones, and chat rooms, your biology will not make an exception for you. This is why people who start to train or workout everyday tend to feel physically and mentally weaker than when they first began their training program earlier in the week. You want to feel strong and mentally alert for the next day’s workout, if not for the next training session. And the Golden Window is a critical piece of that puzzle. If in the case that you cannot meet this Golden Window, I believe that it is better late than never. If you miss the 30-minute window, try to go for the 2-hour window. You must eat a post-workout snack!

Rest
Last but not least, you want to get plenty of rest. Rest is your positive well-being, an overall wellness of your physical health and energy, mental alertness, and your motivation to continue to train and achieve your goal. It’s a good idea to set enough time to do ALL the things that you enjoy and that make you feel good, whether it’s another sport or having coffee with a friend. It’s also a good idea to have good relationships with the people around you and maybe even make a new friend or two. Although we will cover basic nutrition and sports nutrition at a later time, you also want to make sure that you’re eating well and eating right, AND THIS INCLUDES BREAKFAST! Here’s a tip: have breakfast within an hour of waking up. Also, make an honest effort to get your 8-hours of sleep every night. In short, all of these things provide for you physical, mental, and spiritual rest that you will need so that you can take on the next training session. All in all, your rest should be fun and enjoyable. It should not feel labored or scheduled. Take the time to learn your body. In the end, when you are preparing for your race, whether it’s a practice race or THE race of the season, when you get the rest that you need, your running will improve and you will feel good while training.

Wrapping It Up
All in all, the training tip this week is to properly warm-up, cool-down, recover, and rest. On a side note, a good work ethic is an intangible type of character that is hard to teach to an athlete. However, teaching someone the skill set to train smart and to build up and down before and after a training session is much easier to teach. Training smarter is the path of least resistance, the lesser of the two evils, if you will. But it will be naïve and foolish to neglect one over the other, and the truly smart athlete will incorporate both the hard training and the smart training together to achieve the maximum result possible. The training tip this week will give you a set of tools for your growing toolbox in order to race your best in October. Please remember to warm-up your body properly before your scheduled workout. And after your workout, gradually slow down your cardiovascular system, exercise full recovery, and, most importantly, rest your body, mind, and soul. Live to fight another day!