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I n the April issue of Arbor Age, we discussed the importance of the warm-up — to increase body temperature — so that we may safely enter the more demanding stimulus phase of the exercise session. Some people, in order to save time, bypass the lower intensity warm-up as if it's a waste of time. It's not. Likewise, following a training session, the cool- down period allows for the gradual return of body temperature, blood pressure and heart rate to near-resting levels. Additionally an active cool-down period serves to maintain adequate venous return to reduce the chance of post-activity hypotension and to facilitate the removal of lactic acid more effectively than a non- active cool-down. Nonetheless, many, usually the same people who skipped the warm-up, zip away without any cool-down at all. I know, I know, there are places to go, people to see, and business to take care of. What would I, a humble health-fi tness-arborist professional, say to such a person? "Hold on there partner, it's cool to cool down!" Based on what you've already learned from the previous articles, your total exercise regimen should include the following: • Cardiorespiratory training — biking, jogging, walking, swimming. Anything that is rhythmic in nature and can be continued for prolonged periods of time. • Musculoskeletal training — strength fi tness training that is balanced and includes the use of safe exercises to produce an overload stimuli to the major muscle groups. • Flexibility training — safe stretching exercises for each major muscle group. Your individual exercise session doesn't have to include all three types of training each time you workout. Sometimes you'll only need isolated cardio or strength training sessions. Planning your exercise on a weekly or monthly basis will allow you to determine when to include training for all three components in an exercise session or only one; there is room for personal preference and creativity. Continue to have a balanced program but pick the activities and movements that you enjoy most. Turn your fi tness program into something you enjoy, and look forward to doing every day. Each and every exercise session, however, MUST include a warm-up AND a cool-down. The warm-up and cool-down always sandwich the more intense phases — the stimulus phases — of the cardio and/or strength training sessions. The cool-down should consist of 5 to 10 minutes of low- intensity activities such as slow jogging, biking and/or walking. Monitor your heart rate; it should decrease during this time. Most cardio machines these days have accurate heart rate monitoring equipment, so this is an easy task. Following this 5 to 10 minutes, I recommend using the cool-down phase as an opportunity to concentrate on fl exibility training. Flexibility is often ignored completely or only given a minimal time segment during the training session; this is a mistake. Flexibility decreases with age, and, as we become less fl exible, our chance of injury increases. We can minimize our loss of fl exibility if we dedicate time and patience to fl exibility exercises during the cool-down. There are various types of fl exibility training techniques including static, active and proprioceptive neuromuscular HEALTH AND WELLNESS 28 Arbor Age / June 2014 www.arborage.com Cool Down It's Cool to Warm up before the workday starts and cool down when the workday ends By John Amtmann and Brian Schwarzkoph