Warm up, Cool down & Recovery from Exercise

• Why Warm up:

  • Increase muscle temperature
  • Enhance blood flow
  • Reduce anaerobic system & substrate use (reduce lag)
  • Reduce cardiovascular event risk
  • Reduce injury risk
• Why Warm up - Increase muscle temperature (increases...):

  • Contraction / Relaxation speed
  • Nerve conduction speed
  • Offload O2 better
  • Enzyme activity
• Why Warm up - Enhance blood flow:

  • Catecholamine induced cardiovascular adjustment
  • HR, contractility, vasoconstriction / redistribution of blood
  • From autonomic system: PNS & SNS
  • Local factors (from metabolism) induced muscle vasodilation
• Why Warm up - Reduce anaerobic system and substrate use (reduce lag):

  • Greater O2 availability, enzyme activity and thereby:
  • Enhanced lipolysis and lipid oxidation
  • Enhanced aerobic use of CHO
  • Decreased anaerobic glycolysis (lactate)
  • Glycogen sparing (as anaerobic chews thru it)
• Why Warm up - Reduce cardiovascular event risk:

  • Reduced likelihood of cardiac ischaemia, abnormal ECG
  • Particularly relevant for those at risk (pre‐existing coronary artery disease)
  • Graded from slow to more intensive warm up better then only slow warm up
• Why Warm up - Reduced injury risk:

  • Decreased stiffness
  • Enhanced neuromuscular control?
  • Specificity pre‐activation (e.g. knee stabilisers, ACL)
• Things to consider with warm up:

  • Activity
  • Type (strength, power, endurance)
  • Purpose (health, leisure, competition, occupation)
  • Level (leisure ...... elite)
• Things to consider with warm up:

  • Balance warm up against its adverse effects
  • Training time
  • Thermoregulation (esp. in warm temp)
  • Do not want to preload body w/ heat, want to keep cool
  • Substrate usage (e.g. glycogen, IMTG)
  • Don’t want to use lots of substrate/energy in warm up
• Things to consider with warm up:

  • Stretching ?
  • Increased ROM, but may increase injury risk; stretching itself may injure
  • Some decreased performance in short, not associated with reduced injury risk
  • Is controversial - can be good for rehab/physio
  • Tailor for situations, conditions
• • How important is warm up?
  • Clinical = YES!
  • Health = yes; generally little harm anyway
  • Performance = yes; generally, but several issues to solve
• What mechanisms of value:

  • Metabolic priming? (pros and cons)
  • VO2 response & muscle vasodilation
  • Muscle temperature? (pros and cons)
  • Neural facilitation
  • Arousal
  • Skill rehearsal (skill specificity - may be quite important as well)
• How to optimise Warm up? eg

  • Post‐Activation Potential?
  • Increase sensitivity to Calcium (Ca2+)
  • Morning exercise bout?
  • May need more warm up in the morning
• Recovery:

  • Recovery is when training has its effect, ie repair, remodel → adaptation
  • Parameter to look at effect
  • A means to determine physiological impact of previous exercise
• Many contexts/reasons for Recovery:

  • Performance
  • To monitor & hasten readiness for further exercise or work
  • Clinical eg assessing:
  • Asthma
  • Post‐exercise hypotension
  • Health effects (e.g. Metabolic rate)
  • Fitness testing eg
  • Recovery of HR from a set exercise load
  • HR comes down quickly when fitter
  • Training
  • Work‐vs‐rest:
  • During session
  • Between sessions (i.e. To help assess over‐training)
  • Intensities (to maximally stress the relevant energy systems)
• Adaptations requires overload & recovery:

  • With appropriate overload, many systems being stressed will overcompensate during recovery (i.e. adaptation)
  • Recovery differs according to
  • Which system (e.g. metabolic, hydration)
  • Nature of exercise (e.g. eccentric)
  • Situational factors (e.g. nutrition)
  • Overloading system so usually results in overcompensation (end up better off)
• Adaptations requires overload & recovery
• EPOC = Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption
• EPOC:

  • Exponential return of VO2 after exercise
  • Magnitude depends mainly on:
  • Exercise intensity (relative!)
  • Exercise duration
  • Light, brief exercise
  • Rapid, single exponential
  • To baseline within a few minutes
  • Heavy or prolonged exercise
  • Rapid, then slow
  • Elevated ~ hour(s)
• Why EPOC occurs:

  • Arises from (coming from a state of rest, resynthesis & repletion)
  • Anaerobic metabolism of previous exercise
  • Cardiopulmonary, endocrine, ionic & thermal status during recovery
• Why EPOC occurs:

  • Includes
  • Phosphagen resynthesis
  • Glycogen resynthesis
  • Lactate oxidation
  • O2 restored in blood (and muscle?)
  • Thermogenic effects of increase temperature
  • Thermogenic effects of stress hormones (catecholamines)
  • Effects of cardiopulmonary status
• Why EPOC occurs:

  • How would fitness affect it? Why?
  • At same absolute load
  • EPOC greater in untrained as untrained working at higher relative intensity
  • & trained can use aerobic to a greater extent + less CV strain , more sensitivity
  • At same relative intensity (eg 70% VO2 max)
  • Trained will have greater EPOC because able to utilise more O2 & substrates; deplete systems more
• Recovery of specific cardiopulmonary factors:

  • Stroke Volume (SV) - is reduced
  • Sudden withdrawal of skeletal muscle pump
  • Continued withdrawal of SNS activity & circulating catecholamines
  • Heart Rate (HR)
  • The rapid drop is slower relative to SV and to its onset rate (which was rapid due to inhibition of PNS activity)
  • Blood Pressure (BP) - is reduced
  • Sudden withdrawal of skeletal muscle pump
  • Beware of fainting (syncope) if standing still after intense exercise
• Recovery response in Heart Rate:

  • HR for trained return to resting HR more quickly
  • Recovery influenced by:
  • Stress hormones
  • Fitness status
  • Exercise intensity
  • Exercise duration
  • Body temperature
  • Ambient temperature
  • Hydration (fluid levels)
  • Posture
• Energy & Hydration Recovery:

  • Creatine phosphate
  • ~70% in ~30 s (O2 dependent)
  • ~100% in ~3 min (pH dependent)
  • Low pH, high acidity = harder to resynthesise
• Energy & Hydration Recovery:

  • Lactate clearance
  • ~70% in ~15 min (activity dependent)
  • Desirable, undesirable, or immaterial?
  • Doesn’t cause fatigue, can be used in muscle & liver; so could be good to get to them
• Energy & Hydration Recovery:

  • Energy repletion ~10x slower than depletion
• Energy & Hydration Recovery:

  • Glycogen
  • ~24 h (depends on depletion, CHO intake, type)
  • Timing, closer to exercise end greater CHO transport
  • Timing: when taking CHO in; 1st couple hrs GLUT4 transporter (stimulated by contraction) stay there for a while after exercise makes it easier to get glucose into muscles same for amino acid transport
  • + other exercise been doing
• Energy & Hydration Recovery:

  • Water
  • Consume 120‐150% volume lost (urinary output)
  • Take in more that you lost
  • Depends on glycogen resynthesis
  • And sodium (Na+) (food, beverage)
• Issues in Recovery:

  • Research on recovery
  • Potentially insightful, but convoluted issues
• Issues in Recovery:

  • Much commercial focus on recovery (nutrition & methods)
  • But, think critically about if & why you want to hasten recovery
  • e.g. does it matter if glycogen recovers more in the first 6 h with one CHO vs another?
• Issues in Recovery:

  • Popular methods
  • Cold water or contrast recovery
  • Compression garments
  • Massage (M______)
  • Effectiveness still not clear, short term vs. long term (adaptations)
  • Do you want to recover quickly?
  • Acute benefit but diminishes adaptations from occurring
• Muscle cooling in recovery is mostly harmful; multiple reasons!

  • At least for adaptation, anyway
  • Does not always decrease inflammation
  • Trained typically have little anyway
  • Most studies on those w/ muscle damage
  • Decrease blood flow and substrate uptake
  • Decrease vascular adaptation
  • Decrease protein synthesis
  • Decrease muscle repair following trauma/injury(?) i.e. inflammation, is part of healing process
• Muscle cooling in recovery is mostly harmful; multiple reasons!
• Muscle cooling in recovery is mostly harmful; multiple reasons!

  • Few possible reasons to use cooling (short term)
  • If impending re‐exposure to hot exercise; to lower core temperature
  • Short term after injury reduces pain, inflammation, to keep playing, get home…
• Tapering:

  • What?
  • Decrease training load in days before competition; aim of performance.
  • Recovery before loss of adaptation
• Tapering = Longer term enhance recovery, adaptation prior to event
• Tapering:

  • How?
  • Maintain frequency & intensity; but decrease ballistic/eccentric loading
  • That may cause microtraumas
  • Decrease training duration by 40‐60% across last 1‐2 weeks
• Tapering:

  • Why?
  • Likely, maintain regular & intense stimuli for adapted state, but less volume of strain and thus need for recovery & repair.
  • Don’t deplete, time to repair
• Tapering:

  • Issues
  • How to mesh with other prep demands, e.g. heat acclimation?
  • Balance those things out
  • How to mesh with priming efforts?
  • Things need to do, practise with team, skill specificity etc
• 
  

  Why Cool down:

  • Keep blood circulating, clear metabolites from muscle
  • Reduce pooling, prevent possible hypotension
  • Factors (esp. local, metabolites) stimulating vasodilation still present but no muscle pump, gravity, less blood to brain (standing)
  • Can use glycogen, interfere with glycogen resynthesis
  • Can be useful for those who experience (post‐) exercise induced asthma (as can warm‐up)
  • Heat as an alternative? Sauna, spa pool? Dependent on thermal status and hydration; health risks?
  • Hot & dehydrated = not good