It’s a given that after a race or workout you do a cooldown—but is there any evidence this actually helps? The science may say otherwise.
Episode Transcript
Introduction: Do Cooldowns Actually Do Anything?
Rob Pickels 00:04
Hello, and welcome to Fast Talk, your source for the science of endurance sports performance. My name is Rob Pickels. That’s Trevor and Grant. And guys, I read something somewhere. And I don’t remember where I read it. I’m pretty sure it was a quote from Ross Tucker, esteemed sports scientist out there. But I don’t know if I should attribute this to him because I could be wrong. Anyway, he postulated that if you’re doing, in endurance, and you’re looking for aerobic benefits that you should do a cool down after exercise. And that if you’re looking for anaerobic improvement, and signaling, that maybe you shouldn’t do a cooldown, maybe you should just get off the bike, or finish your workout, and go home, and be done with it. And that just sort of brought up the question of what the heck is even a cool down? Do we need to do cooldowns? Do you do cooldowns differently from me? Are they beneficial for anybody? And so that’s kind of what we’re here to talk about today is cooldowns.
Trevor Connor 01:02
And are we debating this? It’s just the three of us. We don’t have a guest.
Rob Pickels 01:06
We have no guest. Well, we have, we have guests, we have sides. We’ve been asking, but we don’t have anybody sitting in the room with us.
Grant Holicky 01:08
Well, I think it’s probably good that we don’t have any of you sititng in the room with us because I feel like cooldowns are very personal. I feel like it is something that is different for everybody because there’s so much more beyond heart science in this, and based on the heart science. The soft sciences come into play pretty extremely.
Trevor Connor 01:32
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Grant Holicky 02:23
I do, too.
Trevor Connor 02:24
But, I was reading the science leading up to this and you know what, I’m going to take the contrarian side and I’ll stay to right now the argument I’m going to make. Science shows no benefit whatsoever. Matter of fact, it can actually hurt you, shouldn’t be doing it.
What Is a Cooldown and Why Do We Do It?
Rob Pickels 02:38
Before we get to that, I think that we all do cooldowns, right? I mean universally, to you guys, what is a cooldown? Let’s just get on the same page. When you say cooldown, Trevor, you do them, what do you mean by it?
Trevor Connor 02:50
What I do, or-
Rob Pickels 02:51
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 02:51
Or how do I define it?
Rob Pickels 02:53
Yeah, yeah whatever. I mean, dude, it’s a debate. Who cares?
Trevor Connor 02:55
So I pulled out the definition out of the scientific study, just to drive you nuts.
Rob Pickels 02:59
Oh, God.
Trevor Connor 03:00
Athletes participate in individual sports regularly perform five to 15 minutes of low to moderate intensity exercise within approximately one hour after their practice. That is the formal definition.
Rob Pickels 03:12
So team sports don’t do it?
Trevor Connor 03:12
I think teams sports count too.
Rob Pickels 03:14
Okay team sports. Grant, what’s cool down to you?
Grant Holicky 03:16
It’s going to tip my hand.
Rob Pickels 03:17
Tip it.
Grant Holicky 03:18
But a cooldown to me is a transition period from a hard intense or not even hard, intense, a focused workout period to the next thing in my life.
Rob Pickels 03:31
That’s the Grant-iest answer I’ve ever heard.
Trevor Connor 03:34
Next thing in your life.
Grant Holicky 03:36
Whatever the next thing is.
Rob Pickels 03:37
I like it, but it’s a Grant answer.
Grant Holicky 03:39
But that I mean-
Trevor Connor 03:40
I’m just picturing Grant going home, his wife is like honey, sit down, we need to talk and he’s like, hold on, I need to do the cooldown so I can get to the next thing in my life.
Grant Holicky 03:50
Not wrong, man. That’s what a car ride is, though. But I think I view warm up in a similar context. In a similar way.
Rob Pickels 03:59
The transition period.
Grant Holicky 03:59
Yeah, I used to talk, I used to do with my swimmers two cycles through a set for warmup. So you do one time through and then repeat it. And I always used to say the first time is to get you here. The second time is to get you going. Because we’re coming from another place in our life to do our training. Even if you’re a pro, there’s something else you’ve been doing before you got on the bike, and you need to now be on the bike. And I think the same thing is very, very true. When leaving the bike, you’re now going to have to go function with the rest of your life. You got to leave whatever that workout was behind you. Good, bad, ugly, whatever, leave it there and go, and move away from it. Because I will, I will vehemently be in the middle in this because you’re right, Trevor, there’s not a whole lot of evidence that this stuff works.
Rob Pickels 04:46
So Grant, I think it’s pretty clear your motivation for doing a cool down, your goal with that is to help that transition.
Grant Holicky 04:57
Yep.
Rob Pickels 04:57
Trevor, I’m willing to bet you’re not quite as deep as Grant, most people-
Trevor Connor 05:02
It’s not the next moment in my life.
Rob Pickels 05:06
I think most people look at cooldowns for one of two reasons. One to enhance their adaptation in their performance or to improve their recovery. Do you fall into one of those two camps with why you-
Grant Holicky 05:18
Or did you?
Rob Pickels 05:18
Or did you? With why you did cooldowns.
Trevor Connor 05:20
I was always religious about cooldowns. I am more and more getting to the point now, that is nice. I almost do it just because I want more time on the bike. But I’ve had many times I finished something hard, jumped in the car and found I was fine.
Rob Pickels 05:33
And been done.
Grant Holicky 05:34
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 05:35
To me, it’s more ritual than I think any particular benefit. And let’s actually, we got a good side from Dr. Pruitt who shows some of this complexity of it, let’s hear from him.
The Science Review: What the Research Actually Shows
Dr. Andy Pruitt 05:46
I go back and forth. I watched the guys finish a six hour stage at the tour. And then they get on their bike and they’re spinning like crazy at 200 Watts, which would cripple many people, and that’s their cooldown wattage. I think it’s insane. I don’t think that length of cooldown is physiologically necessary. Now, to go from a sprint to your car, probably not a good idea. You’re gonna get leglock, right, but a gentle spin down, last night, I finished the race, rolled the round for five minutes, went to my car. You know, I feel fine today. So you got to let the muscle down slowly, but I don’t think it takes 20 minutes to do so.
Trevor Connor 06:29
So I mean it was funny, we actually got that quote from Dr. Pruitt and he and I have been doing this weekly time trial together. And he starts just a couple minutes ahead of me so we can race one another. The next day, we were at that time trial. And I waited for him at the finish line. And then we rode and we rode for like five minutes and went back to the garden. He goes see, Trevor, that’s all the cooldown I need.
Grant Holicky 06:50
Yeah, you know, I think it’s interesting. You mentioned, Trevor, you mentioned ritual. I think ritual is relevant, though, right? One of the pieces of this whole topic I wanted to touch on has to do with ritual, there is a multi billion dollar industry that rolls around on recovery.
Rob Pickels 07:08
Was that pun intended?
Grant Holicky 07:09
Yeah, but apparently it was. And it all kind of stems from the same idea of what we’re talking about with a cooldown, it’s going to enhance recovery. And all right, there’s the contrarian mindset that says, does it really enhance recovery? And I think that’s a big piece. So many of these little tricks and tools that we are told are going to change our recovery, don’t do anything in the scientific studies of them. They, and don’t necessarily hurt, but they don’t do anything. But when the athlete believes that they work, they’re going to be getting something out of them, whether that’s the belief in the ritual itself, whether their belief in the downstream ramifications of that ritual, I think that’s really important, you know, that can kind of tie to what I’m saying about my transition. But who knows.
Trevor Connor 07:54
So let me blind you with a little science. Surprisingly, there were no reviews done on cooldowns until 2018. So this is a study-
Grant Holicky 08:04
Really?
Trevor Connor 08:05
From Dr. Van Hurun and a Dr. Peake, where they say that. They said they were actually surprised their review was the first, so they went through the research on cooldowns. And let me just go through, you know, they basically said, here’s all the explanations, all the things that people think cooldowns do for you. Let’s look at the evidence. And here’s what they found. And I’ll finish with effects on the next performance. But going through, clearing blood lactate, yes, it does speed clear and blood lactate. But we’ll get into this in a minute, is that really important? Delayed muscle onset soreness, no evidence of benefits, improving markers of muscle damage, slight trend towards positive, but not significant. They actually found it interfered with glycogen resynthesis. So particularly if you’ve got an event coming up, that’s not something you want to do. And they just keep going down hormonal recovery, it actually slowed it down. They did do measures of mood state. So look at the psychological side, no impact. Injury prevention, no impact. Adaptation, no impact. It was just kind of didn’t really do anything, their ultimate conclusion was no real evidence of this does much for you. And sorry, I said I’d finish with this. They did talk about impact on your next performance. And what was very interesting is they found if you have an event like two events, and they’re within like an hour to one another, yes, doing a cooldown seem to improve performance in that subsequent event. If you have another event, that’s more than four hours later, the cooldown actually seem to hurt the performance.
Glycogen, Lactate, and Why Old Theories Don’t Hold Up
Rob Pickels 09:30
Yeah, the one beneficial study that I saw was titled Effects of a Cooldown After Super Maximal Interval Exercise on Autonomic Modulation and it’s filled with acronyms that I don’t know what they mean, and I don’t. But when we look at this very specific subset of what’s happening in your autonomic modulation, then yeah, there was some benefit there. But I do think that oftentimes anything, right, and this happens with training too, we can say, oh, there was an increased expression of PGC-1α training in a fasted state. Oh, it’s the, God’s gift to training. But then you look at like downstream and there’s no actual change to adaptation.
Grant Holicky 10:13
Right. Listen, and I’m not an evolutionary biologist, but why in the world would there be a benefit to cool down to us as a species?
Rob Pickels 10:23
So what’s funny, the research paper that Trevor brought up before the lit review, you know, I always, you know, cooldown, you have to do a cooldown because you need to lower your heart rate and your blood pressure gradually, or you’re going to have syncope or a fainting event or something like that. And even in the review there, like there’s really no evidence that it prevents that.
Grant Holicky 10:41
No, and that’s my point, like, evolutionarily, we were running for our lives away from, you know.
Rob Pickels 10:46
But we were doing it slowly for a long time, until the saber-toothed tiger got tired.
Grant Holicky 10:51
No we weren’t. Or we were running with the saber-toothed tiger in its gut. But what I mean is you have those high intensity events, and then you stop. That’s what we evolved to do. There’s no reason to evolve to do a cooldown.
Muscle Soreness, Eccentric Damage, and the Warm-Up vs Cooldown Debate
Trevor Connor 11:06
So there was another study, I found really interesting that I kind of was thankful they brought something up, but first I’ll show, or talking about the results that you see in the study. It’s warm up, reduces delayed onset muscle soreness, but cooldown does not, a randomized controlled trial. And this is led by a Dr. Law and Dr. Herbert. And basically, there was no significance, so there was no difference. But they do have a graph showing the trends in delayed onset muscle soreness over time, and there was a definite trend. And what you saw was, the people that seem to see the least amount of soreness are the people that did a warm up and a cooldown. Next was the people that did a warm up only, then the people that did neither, the ones that saw the most soreness were the people that did a cooldown only.
Grant Holicky 11:51
That’s-
Trevor Connor 11:51
Okay.
Grant Holicky 11:51
Interesting.
Rob Pickels 11:51
Okay. Now I’m looking at this study, I haven’t really read it super deeply. Let’s think about this mechanically how this works, right. Delayed onset muscle soreness is oftentimes due to micro trauma.
Grant Holicky 12:02
Right.
Trevor Connor 12:03
Right.
Rob Pickels 12:05
Of the tissue itself and inflammation resulting there of.
Trevor Connor 12:12
They had a good explanation. I’ll say that’s where you’re going.
Rob Pickels 12:13
Yeah. And so my thought on this is, I’m assuming that they had some sort of hard, high intensity intervention.
Trevor Connor 12:14
So they had them, yeah, I think it was downhill running.
Rob Pickels 12:17
Ohh, okay. So something that’s going to, so if we increase the temperature of the muscle gradually, or we change the contractile properties, and hopefully we can mitigate some of that, but my question is this were people matched for volume? Because if one group is doing a cooldown, and one group isn’t doing a cooldown, the cooldown group potentially is doing more-
Grant Holicky 12:37
increased,
Rob Pickels 12:38
training volume, which leads to more soreness.
Trevor Connor 12:42
Bingo. So they made the exact same points. One was the benefit of the warm up is it gets the muscles warm, and it loosens them up, so you’re gonna have less reach damage.
Rob Pickels 12:53
Yep.
Trevor Connor 12:54
Their point about the cooldown is you’ve already done the damage.
Rob Pickels 12:56
Exactly.
Trevor Connor 12:57
So how is it going to help you-
Rob Pickels 13:00
You’re not going to undo the damage.
Trevor Connor 13:00
If you’re continuing to train, you’re potentially doing some more damage.
Rob Pickels 13:03
You might be enhancing the damage. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 13:05
And that was in the review. They were saying one thing they got out of the whole cooldown is don’t do running as your cooldown.
Rob Pickels 13:11
Yeah, yeah.
Trevor Connor 13:12
Because that’s gaudy centric motion, it’s going to cause damage, where if you get on a bike where there’s no eccentric movement.
Grant Holicky 13:18
Maybe.
Trevor Connor 13:19
Maybe.
Grant Holicky 13:19
Well, it’s interesting, right? Because you think of the damage muscle like a frayed rope, pulling on the rope more doesn’t unfray the rope.
Rob Pickels 13:26
No.
Grant Holicky 13:26
And we are talking about a mechanical system here.
Rob Pickels 13:28
Well, but this is also predicated on the fact that I think a lot of people, and I think you were going here, Trevor, so I’m going to tee it up for you. It’s not lactate that’s causing muscle damage and muscle soreness. So you know, doing cooldown to clear it out isn’t doing anything. It’s a mechanical stress.
Trevor Connor 13:44
And that- that’s what they raise in the study and I think this is a really important point, doing a cooldown. Everybody’s just, that’s what you do. Your coach tells you to do a cooldown.
Grant Holicky 13:48
Right, right. That’s why there wasn’t a-
Trevor Connor 13:51
If you were in gym class in high school, you did a cooldown.
Grant Holicky 13:55
That’s why there wasn’t a review till 2018.
Trevor Connor 13:57
Right. What was the theory behind that? It goes back to the days when we believed in lactic acid, and it was the lactic acid that was doing the damage and causing the muscle soreness. So how often did you hear your old gym coach say, you got to clear out that lactic acid, otherwise, you’re gonna be sore the next day?
Rob Pickels 14:14
Yep.
Trevor Connor 14:15
That’s all been thrown out.
Rob Pickels 14:16
Yep.
Trevor Connor 14:16
Lactic acid doesn’t exist in our bodies physiologically.
Rob Pickels 14:20
And you know, you did bring up, Trevor, there is a faster clearance of lactate from the blood with a cooldown.
Trevor Connor 14:27
Sure.
Rob Pickels 14:27
Well, and this is interesting. I think that this is the point that I’m attributing it to Ross Tucker. And it might not have been, my apologies if there’s someone else that had this thought, lactate, if anything in your system can be a great signal molecule and can actually help induce some adaptation.
Grant Holicky 14:44
Yeah.
Rob Pickels 14:45
And so even if it’s marginally faster, because let’s be honest, your body is going to bring that lactate down to homeostasis, give it a little bit of time, the blood values are going to come back down. Maybe if you’re trying to induce some changes, having a little extra lactate in your system is actually a beneficial thing for you.
Trevor Connor 15:00
Let me think it out loud. Let me throw a theory at you, which is what you really want to do is take that lactate and convert it to glycogen. So you’re ultimately, you’re trying to replenish those glycogen stores. They have definitely shown doing a cooldown can actually hamper glycogen replenishment. So why would there not be a benefit to just immediately stopping, doing passive recovery where you just sit down or lie down and give your body a better chance to take all that lactate and start converting it to glycogen?
Rob Pickels 15:27
Let me ask you this question, Trevor.
Trevor Connor 15:30
Oh, boy.
Rob Pickels 15:30
When we’re talking about
Grant Holicky 15:31
Trevor.
Rob Pickels 15:33
Trevor, Trevor, hehehe, when we’re talking about a cooldown being detrimental to glycogen replenishment, and you might not know the answer, but I hope that you do, are we talking about the rate of glycogen resynthesis, or the total amount of glycogen that your body has after say, four hours? And the reason that I’m asking this is, additional activity will just use more of your glycogen, it might not ruin the replenishment, but you’re starting from a lower place because you did more activity.
Trevor Connor 16:03
Timing is everything. Like I still love that study where they were cheeky enough to literally use McDonald’s, where they took athletes who had just done a hard effort, and had one group do the current recommendations for recovering glycogen replenishment. They had another group eat McDonald’s and show up 24 hours later, their glycogen was the same.
Grant Holicky 16:03
Well-
Trevor Connor 16:03
So if you’re talking 24, or 48 hours later, doesn’t matter.
Grant Holicky 16:03
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 16:30
if you’re doing two events at the same day, it does matter.
Grant Holicky 16:33
And even to that point, like my thought is, even if all this stuff we were just talking about was not true, you’re still going to walk around.
Trevor Connor 16:41
Yep.
Grant Holicky 16:41
You’re still going to get up off the couch and then get back down on the couch, you’re going to be using your musculature. And this whole idea of the flush, it’s very similar to what the context of post workout nutrition is where many a dietician has said, well, you’re going to eat later that day. Because if you’re going to eat at some point after the workout, you’re going to replenish everything you need. Protein is not the end all be all in that context, you’re going to get protein in and you’re going to be able to do this, it’s similar post hard event, you’re going to move, you’re going to function, your blood flow is going to continue to go.
Rob Pickels 17:16
And real quick, while you guys were talking. I was not paying attention. So I have no clue what you just said. But I’m sure that it’s great. I was quickly reading the research study and there is no change in the rate of glycogen resynthesis. It is that point that you just use more glycogen and so you’re not going to be as full later on.
Grant Holicky 17:31
Right.
Trevor Connor 17:32
So here’s another thing to think about that the review hinted at. And I really gave some thought to it and went, wow, that’s actually really interesting, I hadn’t considered. So we have slow twitch and fast twitch fibers in our muscles. When you are doing intensity, you are relying a lot on those fast twitch muscle fibers. When you are going slow, you’re mostly using your slow twitch muscle fibers. Slow twitch muscle fibers as we know, it’s really hard to do much damage to them. When you are damaging your muscles it’s because of the intensity and hitting those fast twitch fibers hearts. So they are the ones that if you’re trying to do anything in the cooldown, they’re the ones you’re trying to benefit.
Grant Holicky 18:07
Right.
Trevor Connor 18:07
But when you’re in a cooldown, you’re doing low intensity, you’re only using the slow twitch muscle fibers. They’re not doing anything.
Rob Pickels 18:14
Yeahhh.
Trevor Connor 18:16
Oh, boy.
Grant Holicky 18:17
It’s not. Rob’s point is it’s not quite that black and white. It’s like saying this is an aerobic workout or this is an anaerobic workout. There’s always a combination of those things all the time. But, I see where you’re going with that. If you’re taxing high twitch muscles to an extent that they’re damaged, going low intensity exercise, I just keep coming back to that kind of frayed rope idea.
Rob Pickels 18:39
Well, yeah.
Grant Holicky 18:39
You’re still pulling on the rope. You’re still using them. I don’t know how that is going to improve a mechanical system. And I think yeah, so much of this goes back to that idea of clearing lactic acid. So much of it does.
Does a Cooldown Help or Hurt Your Next Performance?
Rob Pickels 18:52
Right and other metabolites. And-
Grant Holicky 18:54
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rob Pickels 18:55
I don’t see really a difference in markers of inflammation.
Trevor Connor 18:59
Yeah, sorry, I skipped over, that was in the review as well. They showed really no difference.
Rob Pickels 19:03
Correct like, protein and all of that jazz, too. And, you know, I think that if we look on a study by study basis, I think that maybe some are equivocal, maybe some show a slight positive, you know, it’s not like you can’t find research that doesn’t say a cooldown is effective, because they are out there. But when you take the research as a whole, there’s very little evidence that pulls it into them being positive. But let me ask this, Trevor, and you alluded to this before, is there research saying that a cooldown is detrimental to performance, if we take out the additional training volume variable, is there a reason that you shouldn’t do a cooldown because it actually is going to hurt you?
Trevor Connor 19:41
So particularly in that review, what you saw was mostly it’s saying, doesn’t really do anything for you.
Rob Pickels 19:46
Yep.
Trevor Connor 19:47
But there were a few things where they said there is evidence that it actually hurts. So there are places where it can be detrimental. And there’s actually this great graph where they took all the different things that you’re measuring then for the cooldown, and all these different studies, and showing is there a positive? Is there a negative? And things where they, they’ve seen studies where there’s a negative is in lactate clearance, muscle tissue lactate, the big one is glycogen resynthesis, multiple studies on that. The other addressing one was the restoration of the cardiovascular and respiratory system. So slowing down your breathing, slowing down your heart rate. That was all over the map. Five studies said benefit, two study showed no, two studies showed actually hurt.
Rob Pickels 20:28
And I will say there is that balance, right. Because there’s this there’s a psychological effects, too. There was one that had the negative psychological effects, there was 12 that showed really no difference there whatsoever.
Trevor Connor 20:38
One.
Rob Pickels 20:39
What?
Trevor Connor 20:39
That showed negative.
Rob Pickels 20:40
Yeah, and one that showed negative. Exactly. And this is the point that I’m about to make, because I think we put to that a little bit science wise, it doesn’t, it doesn’t help you. But if it doesn’t hurt you.
Grant Holicky 20:52
Right.
Rob Pickels 20:52
Then is there a reason to not do it?
Grant Holicky 20:55
Well, and again, the conversation is, physiologically, it doesn’t hurt you. I do know that some of those studies- they’re looking at the mental side of some of those studies, but.
Rob Pickels 21:04
Zero positive just so you know, zero.
Trevor Connor 21:07
Zero studies showed positive-
Rob Pickels 21:09
Boom. Goose egg.
Trevor Connor 21:10
No, 12 showing no benefit?
Rob Pickels 21:13
Yep.
Grant Holicky 21:14
I’m rolling my eyes because I know of multiple off the top of my head.
Rob Pickels 21:17
Studies just weren’t-
Grant Holicky 21:19
No, no, I know multiple off the top of my head that speak to this transition mindset about how it works with the rest of your life and how it works with the next thing you’re going to. Don’t sing Kumbaya.
Trevor Connor 21:28
So.
Grant Holicky 21:29
Blah, blah, blah.
Trevor Connor 21:30
I’m going to interrupt because this is a great place, we interviewed Kristin Arnold and she talked about this. She talked about using the cooldown to get in your mind space about the event you just had. So let’s hear from her.
The Psychological Benefits of Cooldowns and Transition Time
Kristen Arnold 21:42
Outside of the physiological aspects of how it could or could not contribute to recovery, it can be a really good time to just decompress by yourself, right. So when I’ve coached athletes, on teams and been on teams myself, if you try to do a cooldown together, everyone’s spinning it like, they’re basically just sitting on their bikes, right. They’re sitting on their bikes rolling. They’re not actively moving their legs, if anything, they’re, they’re not recovering, because they’re not sitting down, but they’re also not getting any kind of blood flow from spinning. So I usually suggest athletes cooldown solo, and in that way, they do have some time to reflect with themselves and not just being excited about, talking about the race afterwards.
Trevor Connor 22:32
What do you suggest as a cooldown, is it just easy spin, low wattage 10, 20 minutes, or do you have a routine?
Kristen Arnold 22:39
It depends on the athlete and the race, as far as what cooldown protocol, if they’ve done a VO2 type workout or high intensity race like a crit, a short race, I’ll have them ramp down. So starting at 80% of FTP and ramping down every minute until they get to 40, 50% of FTP. If it’s a longer duration, lower intensity workout will help them just easy spin for 10 minutes.
Grant Holicky 23:11
So I think one of the points that Kristin Arnold is making here is that immediately post race, while the emotions are still raw, while our experience is still very relevant in our brains, this is a really good chance to look at our performance, look at how we did and make some conclusions about it. Move on to the next thing, transition out. But I think far too many people don’t do that, they move right to their next piece. And now they’re looking back at that performance a day later, two days later, three days later, and our brains suck at looking back, at what we did. And our best opportunity is kind of in that moment when maybe we are emotional, but you can understand the emotions and tie those to the performance. So I think there’s a lot of benefit to that aspect of the cooldown, that mental place and that mental, alright, we’re going to take this break, we’re going to take this moment. I’m going to take this time to myself and kind of understand what it did well, what I can do better, and then move onto the other aspects of recovery that I know matter like, I gotta go fuel now, I gotta go do these other pieces of the puzzle.
Rob Pickels 24:19
Yeah, Grant, I think that, kind of what I was alluding to before is, if I don’t see a reason to not do it, if it’s not going to cause harm, then I begin looking for what are the positives that we can take away from this. And you know, even though we might not be able to say that there is a physiological adaptation associated with what you’re talking about, the net transition period, I think is really positive. The thing that I take away that’s positive from this is just frankly, a cooldown quote and quote, is a great way to get in more training volume, right.
Extra Training Volume vs True Recovery
Grant Holicky 24:46
Yeah.
Rob Pickels 24:46
I don’t do a cooldown after a base ride. It’s not like I’m going out and I’m riding in my zone two and then I ride in zone one for a little while.
Grant Holicky 24:53
Right.
Rob Pickels 24:54
To cool down. But if I’m doing say an interval workout, and I’m doing a four by 15 minutes at some threshold, you know, you do a little warm up, little cool down, and then we’re talking like an hour and 15 minutes worth of work. If I can get additional training volume in that session, then I think that that is beneficial. But I can’t do another high intensity repeat. I physically don’t have it in me, it’s probably not good for my stress in my workload, but an additional 15, 30 minutes of a cooldown is a great way to get more training volume in for me .
Grant Holicky 25:25
Well, and I’ll even throw this piece out too. When we’re talking about pros and cooling down after a stage at the tour. Well, we’re not really worried about how much more they have to do. That 15 minutes isn’t really what’s going to throw them over the edge.
Rob Pickels 25:40
You bring up pros and I just, funny, funny story, pros are built differently.
Grant Holicky 25:44
Right.
Rob Pickels 25:45
And I was testing Jani Brajkovič years ago at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and Boulder Center for Sports Medicine was at the base of Sunshine Canyon, a nice long beautiful climb west of Boulder. And I did Jani’s test and he said, okay, great, I’m gonna do a cool down and I said, oh, great we’re gonna go ride, he’s like up Sunshine. Like dude, you’re gonna do a cool down up Sunshine? He’s like, yeah, but like for him, you know, that was totally fine. For me, I be at like threshold just going up, you know.
Grant Holicky 26:10
Just being in your smallest gear.
Rob Pickels 26:12
Yeah, exactly.
Trevor Connor 26:15
Longtime Fast Talk podcast listeners know that recovery from workouts is as important to training as doing the workouts themselves. The hours fall into key session or when we lock in the gains from the workout. Explore more in the recovery pathway at Fast Talk Labs. With the help of Dr. Steven Siler, Dr. Shawna Halston, Dr. Andy Pruitt and many others, we examine this critical, but often neglected component of exercise physiology. Recover better, adapt stronger, visit Fast Talk Labs and explore the recovery pathway. So I get to transition us, the other side of the science I want to talk about. So basically, we’re going back to the historical context for why they’ve always said you need a cooldown, one was clearing lactic acid. And that’s been completely thrown out that just it’s an outdated concept. But the other one was reducing muscle soreness later. And now there was a really good point made about this in another review, and we’ll put all these studies in the show notes. But another study pointed out what causes muscle soreness is unfamiliar eccentric activity. So it’s basically going and doing something where you have a lot of force muscle lengthening that you’re not used to. So if you haven’t been in the gym in a long time and you go in the gym, you’re gonna be really sore a couple of days later. If you’re going in the gym a couple times a week that soreness is going to stop, your muscles are now familiar with it. And you don’t really have to worry about soreness, you take it to the extreme with cycling, there’s no eccentric movement. So delayed onset muscle soreness really doesn’t exist in cycling. So the other primary reason they keep citing for doing a cooldown, if you’re a regular athlete doing this endurance work, doesn’t really apply to you.
Grant Holicky 27:55
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that makes sense. It’s hard to get sore riding a bike.
Rob Pickels 27:58
I’ve been getting sore recently. I’m just saying, throwing out that out there.
Grant Holicky 28:01
Is that soreness from, and now there’s two types of soreness, right, there’s, there’s soreness because of intensity or there’s soreness because you just riding a lot longer and your muscles are freaking tired.
Rob Pickels 28:12
No, it’s from intensity.
Grant Holicky 28:14
Oh, okay.
Rob Pickels 28:14
Yeah, I know, I don’t know, something’s going on with me.
Trevor Connor 28:19
Fair enough.
Grant Holicky 28:19
Well, that’s always true.
Rob Pickels 28:19
Should I try a cooldown?
Trevor Connor 28:19
Ah, there you go.
Rob Pickels 28:20
See if it works.
Trevor Connor 28:20
Give it a try. So look, I got to say, the science paints a pretty grim picture about cooldown, the evidence is almost stopped, like do your race, do your workout, and then get on the couch.
Rob Pickels 28:32
Are you going to stop doing a cooldown?
Trevor Connor 28:33
Well, we’ll get there in a second. But before we do that, let’s hear from Neil Henderson. Because Neil Henderson we confronted him with the research and here was his response.
What Pros Do and Whether It Actually Applies to Us
Neil Henderson 28:43
So that research is, you know, looking at certain measures and yeah, you may see whatever met outcome measure from those studies being optimized by being passive. If you look at the best riders in the world, what they’re doing right now they are absolutely on the trainer, they are not just even just spinning easy the entire time, we pretty much recommend some bit of easy, some little bit of maybe what I consider, I call a tempo flush. One, two, three minutes at maybe 70, 80% FTP at most, and then easy again, and be done. For that acceleration of recovery, and especially some of the events that I have athletes that do on the track the Omnium now four mass start races, with short periods of time in between, if passive rest was the best, they would be doing it and they definitely do not.
Trevor Connor 29:31
So what do you guys think of that? If the pros are doing it, is it a good thing? Or personally, I would make an argument there are times are there things pros do because it has been part of the ritual, part of the nature for a long time, and it might not necessarily be the best thing for them.
Grant Holicky 29:44
Oh, well, absolutely. Like don’t use air conditioning is the old Belgian thing because you’ll get sick, or don’t put plants in your room because they steal your oxygen. I mean, I think there’s plenty of those things that are kind of ridiculous that they shouldn’t do, but Rob’s point of if there’s no detriment, why not. And one of the big detriments, we were saying is, oh, maybe it uses a little bit more glycogen, maybe it’s going to damage the muscles a little bit more, those guys really don’t have to worry about that. That 15 minutes, that extra work they’re doing is negligible in the grand scheme of things after a six hour day on, at the tour. So I think some of this it doesn’t pertain to them. So now if there’s benefits that are outside of that hard science physiology piece, that’s why they’re going to do it. And I think there’s huge-
Trevor Connor 30:34
What about, what about the rest of us? So that was the other thing that was in that review that we’ve been citing so much, which was yes, in pros, you don’t really see any detriment, might even be some benefit. Because when they’re going easy for 15 minutes, it’s actually easy.
Grant Holicky 30:47
Right.
Trevor Connor 30:47
But they did show in more recreational athletes, you do see a little more of a detriment, because it’s actually still training for them.
Grant Holicky 30:55
Yeah, it’s still training for them. No, I agree. And I think for a lot of us, I saw it a little bit with you here, Rob. And I think, Trevor, you said the same thing. It’s just extra training, it’s just more time out on the bike. And so if I can create my route, where I have that 15 minute cooldown built in, because it’s hard to do those intervals for the 15 minutes to my house, it gives me extra 15 minutes on the ride. And that’s what I’m looking for. But I don’t do a whole lot of like, okay, I’m done with the ride. I’m going to tool through this neighborhood for 10 minutes.
Rob Pickels 31:26
Extra.
Grant Holicky 31:27
Extra.
Rob Pickels 31:27
Exactly. To go super-
Grant Holicky 31:29
Ride past your house. That’s not happening. I mean, I do a couple of weird turns to make sure I’m not on a main road going into my house. But that has nothing to do with cooldowns.
Rob Pickels 31:37
Yeah. And I will say there has been many times and Grant we’ve talked about, you do this in the past, bargaining with yourself.
Grant Holicky 31:43
Yeah.
Rob Pickels 31:44
Right, especially during a workout and I do this all the time on the trainer, where it’s like, alright, if you do this last set of intervals, then you can be done as soon as- and that’s like the bargain that I make. And it’s like, it feels so good. I’m not gonna lie.
Grant Holicky 31:56
Yeah, yeah. No, I well, I love, I love the fact on Zwift randomly, right. Like I can finish a hard workout, the top of the climb, start doing the descent, just get off. I’m warming down look at me.
Rob Pickels 32:11
Oh God, no here’s-
Trevor Connor 32:13
I will tell you on the trainer, I think the main reason I do a cooldown is because of, like I’ve done at times where I’ve done intervals and I’m in a rush, and as soon as the intervals are done, I’m off the bike running into the shower, and I hate the feeling of that. Because you’re still sweating, when you’re still sweating and showering. It’s awful.
Rob Pickels 32:29
You come out sweatier than you would in.
Grant Holicky 32:29
And break the sweat. It’s a great Seinfeld episode, you didn’t break the sweat.
Rob Pickels 32:34
Real quick, on your Zwift thing, just so everybody knows when I was earning my Tron bike on Zwift, I did base ERG rides up Alpe du Zwift. Every ride that I did was up the alpe in base, okay, and at the end of my base ride, I definitely wouldn’t be at the top. But I would hit the U turn button, I would get off my bike. And I would watch it coast back to the bottom. But you have to- here’s the pro tip, you got to take it out of workout ERG mode at that point. So you begin earning drops by kilometer.
Grant Holicky 33:02
Right.
Rob Pickels 33:02
Just so you know.
Trevor Connor 33:03
You see, you know, that is actually how I now know whether I’m motivated for the season or not. If I am not very motivated for the season, I will do that, go to the top of Alpe du Zwift, turn the bike around, get off and go, ah, I got seven, eight extra minutes and I didn’t have to do anything.
Rob Pickels 33:23
The best, the best part is when your bike coast to a stop at the bottom, there are other bikes sitting.
Trevor Connor 33:28
Right there. But when I am motivated for that year and want to train hard, I’m like I will not give myself any of those three minutes.
Grant Holicky 33:36
I don’t have a problem.
Rob Pickels 33:37
No. The correct response to that was I can look at you and know that, Grant.
Grant Holicky 33:43
I yeah, I mean, I think for so many of us it, I am definitely in a place where for the pure physiology of it. I am past the idea of a cooldown. I don’t really use that whole transition idea when I’m outside on a ride, because I think that that’s somewhat built into the end of my ride. Coming through my neighborhood, it’s built into the end of my ride. I definitely use that transition thing on a trainer. I will finish the workout, turn off the music, finish the workout, turn off YouTube, whatever it is I’m watching and just spin. Super easy for kind of five minutes and go where am I going next in my day? All right, I gotta go do this. I gotta do that. I feel good. Let’s go do it.
Rob Pickels 34:24
Let’s make this actionable. You spin super easy. Do you just lower it to a-
Grant Holicky 34:28
I usually do-
Rob Pickels 34:29
50% threshhold? What do you do?
Grant Holicky 34:31
I usually go super easy just so that I don’t have to think. At all, right. I’ll sit up on the bike typically that unloads on Zwift kind of in and of itself, in some ways. Just sit up, and just spin, and just take some deep breaths. Okay, what’s next? A lot of times it starts with a, take a deep breath. Good job, Grant. Pat myself on the back for a little bit, acknowledge what I just did, because I think that’s relevant. And then all right, where am I going next? And I feel like that transition makes the world a difference in how fast I feel like I’m having to go. Like just to the rest of my life, right. Like, oh God, I’m behind. I don’t typically feel behind when I really do transition time. And I think that’s super relevant for going into workouts as well.
Overdoing It: When Post-Race Cooldowns Become Counterproductive
Trevor Connor 35:16
So I got a question for both of you, because we’ve all been kind of agreeing on the 10, 15 minutes, spin fairly easy. But every one of us has been at a race where you see those riders that finish a race, get on their trainer, and you can see they’re still sweating. They’re putting out, they’re basically doing interval work after the race.
Grant Holicky 35:35
Yep.
Trevor Connor 35:35
What’s our feeling about that? And I’ll start by saying, I think they’re just doing damage and not helping themselves.
Grant Holicky 35:40
Oh, yeah, I agree. I think there’s a lot of people that, I think there’s so many people, especially in endurance sports that just can’t get their brain out of more is the benefit. And getting on there yeah, if you’re putting in a bunch of energy, you’re doing more. You’re, it’s more work. So you’re taking away some of the energy you have available for down the road. I really do.
Rob Pickels 36:02
Literally.
Grant Holicky 36:02
Literally. Yeah, I think, you know, in cross races, we, I mean, I remember you used to, I used to worry about this with the team when they had to go to the podium, and they didn’t have time to get on the trainer and warm down after the race. But like, anecdotally, I never saw any difference the next day, it wasn’t like, oh, the day they had to get on the podium. We tore down the feedback trainers, they didn’t get a ride and they were terrible the next day. We didn’t have any of that. Now go to the podium, have to do media, it becomes a two hour, three hour endeavor. Yeah, there’s problems with that, like drug testing. There’s problems with that, they have a hard time recovering after that, but it wasn’t because they missed their spin. Now, I still think people do it because they like it.
Trevor Connor 36:42
Yeah.
Rob Pickels 36:42
I’m okay with people doing it. As long as they kind of, Grant what you’re saying, I think is understand the ramifications and what the actual benefits are. And, you know, if we’re talking a Tuesday night race series, or, or I don’t know, you know, as long as it’s built into the program of we’re accounting for all of this workload, we know what we’re doing, we’re doing it because we want extra training time, I want to get some additional base after a really hard effort. You know, here’s the thing, in my opinion, you know, cooldown is hard, right. We all know a cooldown to kind of be that period from end of the last effort until you’re off the bike. We just call that cooldown, right, but it doesn’t have to be a cooldown. I don’t know. But it’s just what I label it in a workout or whatever else.
Grant Holicky 37:23
Yeah, I hate the mentality of and I guess this is the old swim coach in me. And the old swimmer in me I hated the mentality when we got behind in a workout. And we were cramming the intervals right up until the very last minute, practice ended at 6:30. We finished our last interval at 6:32 and coaches like okay, you got to get out because the next group is getting in. And got out of the water, my heart was still high, I still felt like crap. The reality is, it’s not the cool down, that doesn’t make you feel like crap anymore. It’s time that makes you not feel like crap. I just don’t like it when the workout is over. And I’m done working out, feeling like crap.
Rob Pickels 38:03
Well, in that situation, right. The other side of this is, it almost feels like you had a failure, where you weren’t able to achieve this part of the workout, you were rushed out of the pool. It wasn’t completed, if anything that can make you feel worse, right.
Grant Holicky 38:17
Yeah. And I think there’s so many of those mental pieces to that puzzle, right. I just don’t like getting off my bike or out of the pool feeling like somebody beat me up, you know, give me five more minutes. And I can feel good getting off the bike, or at least my heart rates down and I’m not breathing out of my eyeballs, that feels a little bit better. But that’s as simple as like riding from the finish line around with my buddies talking about the race for two minutes, and then riding in the car, it accomplishes that for me. So it doesn’t need to be this really dedicated focus. That’s the thing to your point, Trevor, when you see those people getting on and their focused, and they’re still sweating, they’re still going.
Rob Pickels 38:56
Right. 10 minutes at this workload, five minutes at that workload.
Grant Holicky 38:58
Right, right. I think it’s so dictated, it’s so structured that, the I’m almost begging them to get a little less structure in there. You need a moment, you need a break.
Trevor Connor 39:09
That’s, that’s kind of where I was going.
Grant Holicky 39:11
Yeah, but they’re- You’re not doing it anymore.
Trevor Connor 39:12
Is that really helping you? If we’re saying some of the benefits might just be changing your mental headspace. Is that doing-
Rob Pickels 39:13
But I think that some people find safety.
Grant Holicky 39:22
And they find comfort and structure.
Rob Pickels 39:23
Exactly, yeah, I could see some athletes wanting their transition period to be more structured than other unstructured people.
Grant Holicky 39:31
Yeah, yeah. I think as long as we’re in a clear understanding of why we’re doing it. If this is to be done with that move to that, if this is gotta clear my head, if this is for me, I just don’t want to feel like crap anymore when I get done with this activity. As long as we’re very clear on what it is that we’re trying to do. It doesn’t matter how you do it individually, but to the point you’re not clearing lactic acid.
Does More Training After a Race Help Adaptation?
Trevor Connor 39:54
Right. So I gotta throw another hot take and love your reactions on this. So, we kind of hinted at this and even that review said it. So I’m just going to read right out of the review, “In active cooldown after every training session does not attenuate and may even enhance the long term adaptive response.” What they’re getting at is what we’re talking about, which is, it’s just more training.
Grant Holicky 39:57
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 39:58
So you might get a little more adaptation for it. So I actually do see the argument and I use this myself of if I’m at a race where I’m just, it’s part of my week, I’m just going there to get some training, I might do 30 minutes, even an hour afterwards, go. It’s just continuing my training, I’m here to train.
Rob Pickels 40:27
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 40:27
The concern that I now have, just thinking back to all my days of doing stage races, should I have been doing a little more of the five minutes, getting the team van, go get your food, whatever other methods, you have a recovery. I was one of these people, it was like, and I need to get ready for the next day, I’m going to do this 30 minute cooldown with some efforts and everything else. Sounds like that actually might not be the best approach?
Rob Pickels 40:49
Well, I’m gonna split the difference on that, right. Because the question I’ll ask is, what was your limitation to performance in the subsequent events? Was it your lack of glycogen? Because hey, you just burnt up some more carbohydrate out of your muscle. And so the cooldown was probably not worthwhile. Or was it beneficial for you to mentally know that you went through the routine, you quote and quote, did the things that you needed to to have a good performance, and that alone, I think, could probably offset any glycogen depletion that your body experienced.
Grant Holicky 41:24
Especially at your level, your training, and fueling and all those things, I do think, to piggyback on this. And I kinda keep playing devil’s advocate back and forth. If you really believe in that, and you really believe that this is going to help you. This is what they say with a lot of the recovery things, right. If you really believe in massage, you have people that are getting a benefit from massage, but there may not be a whole lot of scientific evidence that there points to an improved performance. But if you’re in a place where it really mentally helps you because you believe you, personally are getting a benefit out of that, yeah, you need to do it. But if you’re one of those people that is like I need to do this, because other people are doing this, that’s when you’re going to get into a place where you’re postponing your post race fueling. You’re postponing the ability to go sit down and really relax, you’re postponing the hydration pieces that go into that. Because you’re probably not sitting on the train or cooling down, pounding food in to recover from the state, you’re still ridding. It’s maybe splitting hairs a little bit, but the belief and what we do that makes us feel good matters. It’s relevant.
Rob Pickels 42:30
Well, we know that, you know, stage racing, minimizing workload throughout the course of the stages, and, you know, taking this extra time for recovery, maybe not the best thing. And so Trevor, I think moving forward for you take that last 5k or so just real easy to the finish line, you’ll get your cooldown in you can get right off the bike, right into the van, no extra work, I think you’re golden. 5k, that’s all you need. The last 5k take it easy.
Grant Holicky 42:53
I think this is-
Trevor Connor 42:54
Which for other reasons, more more, whatever.
Rob Pickels 42:57
Because you could drop.
Grant Holicky 42:59
But this just exactly what I was gonna say this justifies getting dropped really, really well.
Rob Pickels 43:05
No, I was dropped on purpose, guys, I’m gonna be really good tomorrow.
Trevor Connor 43:08
I would like to say. So to your point, you were talking about the different recovery. I think this is worth mentioning. There were several reviews of all the different recovery methods in which are beneficial and as again, amazing the number that they just go, no evidence of it whatsoever. So I’m looking at a review right now that was led by a Dr. Peak, Muscle Damage and Inflammation During Recovery from Exercise. And what they found, looking at all the different methods, was really the ones that seemed to help were the compression.
If Recovery Matters, What Actually Works?
Rob Pickels 43:39
Thanks.
Trevor Connor 43:40
So that was massage, foam rolling, Normatec, and cold water immersion. And in that-
Rob Pickels 43:46
Immersion shows up a lot. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 43:48
And they did in that one they looked at active recovery and went, don’t see any benefit.
Grant Holicky 43:53
Yeah. Yeah.
Trevor Connor 43:54
So that’s my point of if I went back to those stage races I hadn’t do, I could do them again. I would have shortened my recovery from 40 minutes or whatever I did to 5, 10 minutes, gotten home, done a good foam roll.
Grant Holicky 44:06
Yeah. And for me, I think if it’s keeping you from doing the things that really help you move on to the next day, you’re doing more harm than good.
Rob Pickels 44:16
Yeah.
Grant Holicky 44:16
Right? Like we can talk about recovery all day long. There’s, I like Normatec boots. I like how it makes me feel. I like how it calms me down and puts me more into a relaxed state. And I think the same thing happens with cold water immersion lowers the core body temperature, you’re more likely to recover and sleep because of that.
Rob Pickels 44:36
Well and do you do see actual like decreases in biomarkers and inflammation and stuff with cold water immersion?
Grant Holicky 44:42
But we don’t see a lot of that in a cool down and so if it’s keeping you from doing those other things that are helping you be successful, it’s time to probably shorten it up.
Trevor Connor 44:52
Well we did not debate as much as I expected.
Rob Pickels 44:54
Well yeah, you know, the one thing I will say my disappointment with this episode was, I really looked for research that would be like, no having higher circulating levels of lactate as a signaling molecule would actually enhance anaerobic adaptation or whatever. And I wasn’t really able to come across anything. So the whole reason that I like threw this topic out there never actually came to fruition as a discussion point. So maybe there is something there, maybe there’s not. And if you were the person that made the statement, hit me up. Let’s talk about it a little deeper. Whoever you are.
Grant Holicky 45:23
I think maybe the question is, maybe we need to do some biased research toward recovery and see what we can figure out.
Rob Pickels 45:33
Intentionally biased research. I love it.
Grant Holicky 45:36
There’s a lot of potentially viable research out there, guys, let’s not kid ourselves.
Rob Pickels 45:40
We’ll get it funded by the cool down conglomerate of the world. And uh.
Trevor Connor 45:44
We will have two groups. One that does an active recovery. One that sits on a couch while Grant beats their legs with a baseball bat.
Rob Pickels 45:52
But both of them are going to be shoveling mounds of pasta down their gullet.
Grant Holicky 45:56
Oh I love this, I will call the cool down lobby.
Rob Pickels 46:02
Is it a bunch of people sit? No, no, no, no, that’s passive recovery.
Grant Holicky 46:06
Not passive recovery. They’re all on trainers in their seats. With briefcases.
Rob Pickels 46:12
Well, guys, I think that we had a pretty good discussion today. I think there was take homes throughout this episode. But if we had to, you know, cut some clips out Grant, give us a voice.
Final Takeaways: Physiology vs Psychology
Grant Holicky 46:22
I think my take home from this is that physiologically, we may not have a big benefit from a cooldown but psychologically, mental health, preparation for the rest of your day. I personally, and I can, you know, there is research to back this up, there is a big benefit to having that transition time between one activity to the next activity. Can slow you down and your day, it can allow you to decompress, maybe even look at the rest of the day with clear eyes and with a plan, instead of being overwhelmed by it. So I think from my sciences, the mental strength piece, how we enter in with a warm up, focused warm up, the transition is in the workout, and focus cool down that transitions us out of workout can be very beneficial.
Rob Pickels 47:06
Trevor what’s your 30 seconds of fame?
Trevor Connor 47:08
So I still don’t know where I stand on the cooldown. But what I found really fascinating reading the research on this was the fact that cooldowns are just part of sports culture. But whether there is benefits that we just haven’t discovered in the science or not, it was originally based on science that has been completely disproved. This idea that you’re clearing lactic acid, if you don’t clear the lactic acid, your muscles are going to be sore. And all that’s not true. So it is now a concept that everybody does their cooldown, everybody believes in this. But it’s kind of that concept that’s now looking forward to evidence because the evidence, the proof, the science behind it is gone.
Rob Pickels 47:50
My take home is this, you know, Trevor, as you brought up in that review study, the vast majority of research that’s out there shows no difference either way. Couple show positive benefits, couple show negative benefits, but it’s not like there is anything strong in either of those directions. And, you know, therefore, if there’s something that’s not doing you harm, and you derive joy from it, what the heck man, go for it. Physiologically Grant, I think, you know, you and I are somewhat on the same page. And I’m just going to add nuance to what you said, physiologically, I do think that there’s benefits to cool down as long as we just understand it’s more training time, nothing more, nothing less. Right. But this transition, you know, I would even argue, you know, as we talked about for pros, if anything, the transition for a pro is maybe the biggest reason and they might not cite that as being the reason, but if anybody needs it the most, they’re probably the ones that need that benefit the most. So it doesn’t appear to be harmful. Aside from the fact you’re burning a little more glycogen, so why the heck not? I’m gonna keep doing cooldowns.
Grant Holicky 48:43
Yeah, I will too. I think it’s a, it’s a big part of how I do it and what I do.
Rob Pickels 48:47
Trevor, are you on team cooldown? Are you part of the cool down lobby?
Trevor Connor 48:50
So that time trial I’m doing every Wednesday night.
Grant Holicky 48:52
Yeah.
Trevor Connor 48:53
It is an hour and a half drive through Denver traffic to get to that time trial. It is 24 minutes. Whenever I finish that time trial, I look at the fact that I only have 40 minutes on my timer, and I do a cooldown just because for that length of drive. You just got to justify it. Gotta justify it. I need to have at least an hour on the clock.
Grant Holicky 49:11
Legit, that’s 100% legit, I’m with you.
Closing Remarks
Rob Pickels 49:14
That was another episode of Fast Talk. Subscribe to Fast Talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcast. Be sure to leave us a rating and review. The thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual. As always, we love your feedback. Join the conversation at forums.fasttalklabs.com, or tweet at us with @fasttalklabs. At the fasttalklabs.com to get access to our endurance sports knowledge base, coach continuing education, as well as our in person and remote athletes services. For Dr. Andy Pruitt, Neil Henderson, Kristin Arnold, Trevor Connor, Grant Holicky, I’m Rob Pickels. Thanks for listening.
