Each bike session should end with some cool down exercises. What are those and why are they so important?
Cool down is one of the good practices on bike which permits to stretch your muscles, promote recovery and calm your body after sports. It takes 10 minute of exercises to allow the body to successfully overcome the workout stress. Once the habit is taken, with constant practice, the muscles will be more elastic and the whole body will benefit.
IN PRACTICE
On the way home, after the training session, you pedal with a short ratio to rotate your legs on high-frequency. This allows you to increase circulation and oxygenation of the blood and therefore “wipe out” away the lactic acid accumulated during the workout.
Once you arrived at home, instead of settling the bike and come inside, you loose the legs muscles with some stretching exercises. Lunges and stretches help the body to move from an activity to a rest stage, in a gradual way.
The benefits of the cool down:
- Stretches the muscles and strengthens the tendons
- Improves flexibility
- Allows a gradual passage from an active state to a rest state.
- Reduces the post-workout muscle fatigue and pain
- Improve absorption of lactate in the blood and muscles