Originally Posted by
Machka
Well, according to my Fitness Theory text (which I don't have in front of me right now) ... if you exercise hard and then just stop, your blood pressure drops suddenly and your blood pools in your extremities (there's a name for that phenomenon, which is in the text), and you could faint or even die (if you've got some sort of heart difficulty).
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/SM00067
Yeah, post-somethinorother hypotension. I'll almost pass out after squats sometimes, but never after riding. Our group often has a finishing sprint, then we pull into the parking lot and just stop. Occasionally, I'll do one lap around the parking lot. As far as I can tell, it doesn't make the slightest difference to my recovery if we do the sprint or just finish the ride easy.
Warm up is a completely different story. I like to take at least 10 minutes to let my heart rate even into the upper end of zone 2, say 80% of max. That makes a huge difference. I noticed that for the first time when I was 10 years old. It's still true.