How to Properly Warm Down After Working Out

After an intense personal training, a nice hot bath and jumping on the couch may seem like the best post-workout relaxation. Think again, because after that hardcore session of muscle gain exercises, there’s still one important thing to do – warm down. Contrary to popular belief, warming down is just as important as warming up. Without a personal trainer, most people take this important step for granted. Why warm down when you can just immediately get your rest? Here are two good reasons:

 1. Helps flush out lactic acid
An intense muscle gain workout can lead to a buildup of lactic acid in your muscles. Lactate is produced throughout the day as your body breaks down glucose. While doing normal exercises, your muscle cells get enough oxygen to use energy from other sources. While in intense anaerobic workouts, demand for energy is high but oxygen levels are limited, lactate can accumulate to a point where it can no longer be re-absorbed and reused to create energy. Lactate changes to lactic acid that gives you that burning sensation in your muscles. Warming down will increase blood flow and flush the muscles of lactic acid, reducing the potential for soreness and stiffness.

Finding the Perfect Balance Between Cardio and Weight Training

Muscle gain and cardiovascular training normally don’t go well together. Both types of training have their fair share of benefits, but when combined in one workout plan, your body will get confused with the training of two different physiological energy systems: the aerobic and the anaerobic. Aerobic training strengthens your cardiovascular system (heart and lungs), which is great for weight loss and improving your general fitness levels. However, it’s not so great when it comes to muscle gain. Too much cardio training can actually break down your muscles and replace bulky fast twitch muscle with the leaner slow twitch kind. Meanwhile, anaerobic weight training helps in muscle gain but don’t have the body fat loss benefit of cardio.

If you don’t have a personal trainer yet to help you out in your personal training program, follow these tips to find that perfect balance between cardio and weight training:

1. Too much training is more bad than good

Unless you’re overweight, don’t do any more than 20 minutes of cardio work in one session after your first three months. You may start to compromise your muscle gains if you train for more than this. If body fat loss is what you aim for, then  do three cardio workouts a week for the first three months, instead of the usual two per week. The additional workout should be a steady placed effort that is not more than 45 minutes after your weights workout.