There are lots of virtuous angels out there who don't just do some form of cardio and strength training, but are also religious about always warming up, cooling down, and gently stretching their various hard-working body parts.
Others may think all that sounds like a very good idea, and do it sometimes... while frequently blowing it off and just feeling guilty about it instead.
And then there is a third camp--those who just jump in cold, exercise as hard and as long as seems warranted, and then... screeech! ... come to a complete stop when they feel done. They then head straight for the shower, or more stinkily, back into their cars or jobs or lives, without doing any of that sissy in-between stuff that makes exercise take so much longer without really "counting" as exercise.
I've generally been in the second group, the guilty-semi-slackers, though as I've gotten older I've been getting closer to the first angelic-anal-compulsive category. So I was all prepared to jump right in with some tips about how to become better about doing all that stuff.
But, I figured first I better warm up with a little research, just to be able to scare you with a good list of Horrible Consequences that might ensue if you skip these pre and post workout rituals.
And guess what? Well... crap! Turns out it's all more complicated than I thought. I had to really stretch to reconcile my discoveries with the "expert" advice I've been reading for decades. How annoying! But then I cooled down a bit and decided I did not actually need to report every damn conflicting research study or expert opinion on the matter. Reading and then ignoring research is something of a specialty here at Cranky Fitness.
(Especially since for some reason the malevolent blogger platform has recently been refusing to save my drafts, but passively-aggressively failing to tell me that before I innocently shut down the computer to go raid the refrigerator. So I'm now starting this over for the third f--cking time and hunting down the links all over again. Grrr.)
Anyway, here is some of the shocking information I discovered about stretching, warming up, and cooling down, as well as some thoughts on doing or not doing them.
