Cool down wrap question

Hey all.

It’s been awhile, about 4-5 months or so and I noticed the half inch I gained in 3 months has almost completely gone away in that time and I was looking forward to finding some time in my schedule to pick it back up.

I was thinking about when I can do a routine, and I realized the biggest problem for me is the cool down wrap.
My routine involved taking a shower to warm everything all up and make a routine fit right in place and time, and to cool down after my routine I always just went back in the shower for 5-10 minutes and then had to dry off and everything again taking another 5-10, and I don’t live alone which also made the other people in the house very confused at why I always showered twice when I showered.

I’d also like to mention, that at the conclusion of a workout but before the cooldown—-everything was in a large, pulsing plump state and looked really good. But after the cool down everything shrunk and got cold (despite warm water and all) and made me feel like I just wasted the workout.

So my question really after a long story becomes: Is the cool down really necessary? Will it be a waste of my time if I don’t cool down after a workout? I feel like if I can cut out the cool down, it’ll save me a good 10-15 minutes of my routine time as I don’t need to get back in the shower and get out again, plus I won’t see the after cool down shrunken state I always saw as well.it will make a routine that much quicker and more convenient for me.

Thanks for your help, best of luck.

Hey MTGXerxes,

The fact that your unit gets cold and shrinks may be because you are overdoing it, i.e, a too intense workout.
What is your routine after those 4 months? If it’s still the newbie routine you might want to check out some more advanced ones, but with less stress and time at first. Your unit gets used to doing the same exercise every time and it might stop gaining.

Warming down is important according to many and myself. For example, when your back hurts warming it up makes it more bearable. Why? Because of blood flow. Blood not only feeds our cells, it heals them also. After doing a PE exercise you need to feed your cells and therefore heal your unit. Warmth opens the veins and blood flow increases.

A shower is nice but you need to warm up locally and keep the warmth where it’s supposed to stay for those 10 minutes or longer. An insulated environment one might say. Ever tried a ricesack? Throw in the microwave, hit the button and stuff it down your pants. Folding a peace of cloth and warming that up also does the trick, and it’s less obvious. Be careful though, wrong button and you’ll (micro)burst off your willy. The strange thing is that once you’ve put on an microwave heated cloth or ricesack it tends heat up, happened to me once anyway. Freaky and painful!

Stay with the program dude, best of luck.

Be sure to address the vets also, they are a great source of information.

Knine

I should probably clarify that after those first 3 months, the next four I’ve taken off due to going back to college and holiday retail hours being hell and such so the reduction hasn’t been due to too much time of the same routine but instead losing the gain I had.

Where on Earth would I find that much rice? How much does a bag of rice at a grocery store come with inside?

You won’t need that much rice, a few hundred grams should do, I do believe you can buy rice in the open dry bulk section of a grocery store. Next time you feel pressed for time just try to do the stretches, that doesn’t mean “oh I don’t really feel like doing my exercises today so I think I’ll just stretch.”

I think the reason why you might shrink up a bit when doing the shower cool down is because of change of temp. Try drying yourself off in the shower and wrapping a towel around you before you open the shower door/curtain, I bet you nutsack shrinks as well. This happens to me and I take very hot long showers, by the time I dry and reach my room I’m usually a bit smaller.

By taking that much time off you should do the newbie routine again to get in the swing of things.

P.S. Take what I said with a grain of salt I’m also a newbie

I’ve always wondered the same thing.

Aha! Found an ancient thread of mine, so now I don’t need to start a new one persay…..but this post is kind of a new thread anyway.

So, sadly, I haven’t done any PE since the time of that post (actually, it sounds like that post was after a couple month break from my routine in the first place) and I’ve got my desire back. The main thing that would get in my way and prevent me from doing routines is my inability to make time for warm ups/cool downs as I don’t really have the greatest amount of privacy or alone time and it was tough to start and keep a routine.

So lately I’ve been looking at threads regarding those two sections of a workout to see if people feel they are skippable, etc. It looks like they aren’t, as I figured, but something I noticed this time I didn’t hear of before.

I saw a lot of threads recommending cold after the workout instead of another warm wrap to finish things off. I always remembered whether I used a warm-wrap or nothing at the end, that I always turtled up in a few minutes post workout (though that may be because I do too many jelqs for a newbie, I don’t know when to stop because it feels like I should keep going). From what I’ve read recently however, using ice over a thin cloth to cool rapidly will “freeze” the current state and help to cement gains.

My next thought was what if you just put on a light clamp after a session and leave it enlarged for a duration of time while you proceed to cool it down (or let it cool itself). If this would be a good practice or too much? I’ve only done this my first couple workouts back and it seems that after I remove the clamp that I shrink back anyway….but again, it may be because I always overwork myself since I’m so conditioned to working out with “always able to do one more” and pushing myself to the brink, etc, that perhaps he just isn’t capable of handling it all yet.

PI’s aside, does the light clamp with ice (and a paper towel so you don’t directly ice the skin) sound like a productive way to go about things? I’ll try to start off slower and work my way up but it just feels like I’m not accomplishing anything when I only go for a few minutes.

If I could ever get set in a good method for warmup/cooldown, then I wouldn’t have any obstacles left. They always got in my way and I feel like I’ve never done them right.