Whatever your workout, be it a run, a swim, a session at the gym, a new sport  or a long ride on your bike, it’s important to keep yourself warm afterwards.

At the beginning of your workout you’ll probably do some sort of warm up (and if you don’t you really should!). Warming up prepares your body for the activity you’re about to do by raising your body temperature, increasing your heart rate and preparing your muscles by increasing blood flow.

Keeping warm after your workout, or cooling down, will gradually bring your blood-pressure and heart rate back to normal. As you've been working out, your body is experiencing much higher rates than usual, so it’s important to ease it back down instead of abruptly stopping all together.

Let’s go through some of the main reasons you should stay warm after your workout

It’s important to think about your muscles after your workout. Failing to put yourself through a proper cool down can result in muscle injury, such as a pulled muscle, which will keep you out of action for a while. Stretch out properly when you’re done to ease muscle tension and reduce the risk of injury. It’ll also help your overall flexibility and improve your performance next time. 

Keeping warm after your workout will also reduce DOMS, Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. A great way to do this without a lengthy cool down routine would be a brisk walk on the treadmill, or walk home from wherever you’ve been training. 

The key to avoiding injury is cooling down slowly and efficiently, so make sure you stretch those muscles out properly before finishing up. 

After you’ve been giving it your all on the treadmill or bike, it's not wise to jump off and finish it right there and then. Your body’s going to be the hottest thing in the room at that point, and immediately going out to where it’s going to be considerably cooler 

After your workout, remove any damp sweaty clothes. Other than feeling pretty uncomfortable, the temperature of the clothes will end up cold. 

A hot shower after your workout will really help you loosen up your tight muscles. 

A great way to keep yourself warm after your workout will be throwing on a KitBrix Poncho to lock in the warmth your body needs to keep going. The oversized fit of our KitBrix Poncho allows room for pulling arms in, keeping warm and drying off. The drying robe contributes to our sustainability mission, with the outer shell made of recycled bottles so keep you warm and fight off the wind. The fast drying fleece interior lining works to get rid of moisture and keep you as warm as possible. 

You’ll usually see athletes and those that train hard throwing on a big coat or an equally warm item of clothing. This isn’t usually down to the fashion choice, but to keep all the heat that they body lets out, in! Especially if it’s been an outdoor workout. Luckily the KitBrix Poncho looks great and does the job.