Short term recovery from a workout is important both physically and psychologically. Short term recovery is achieved through the cooling down phase immediately after a workout. The cool down helps reduce the chances of any muscular stiffness over the following few days, and lessens any potential for injury that may occur immediately after the exercise session when coordination may be a little off. A brief cool down will also allow the heart and lungs to reduce the immediate pace and start to pay back the oxygen debt caused by intense training.

A basic cool down session requires you to gradually decrease the intensity level over the last 5 minutes, bringing the body back to a normal pace. Sometimes the cool down may need to change slightly depending on the individual and specific circumstance. For example, if I am breathing uncomfortably hard and my heart is racing, maybe after a particularly hard training session, I change my cool down period to simply walking around slowly while taking in deep breaths and exhaling faster than inhaling. This seems to help me recover faster during these intense workouts. Although I must state that I do not recommend you to be breathing hard after any workout, unless you have years of training under your belt or you’re guided by a qualified instructor!

After breathing rate has slowed right down you should do a few more gentle stretches to finish off the workout. All this warming up and cooling down may seem like it’s adding too much extra time to fat burn workouts, but in fact both a warm up can be as little as 5 minutes duration. Although, keep in mind that 10 – 15 minutes is probably better!