When I started training with my Couch-to-5k app, I got in the habit of walking for a couple minutes at the beginning and end of each run. The idea of the “warm up” and the “cool down” are probably not foreign to you, as we learned from gym class early on that this, and stretching, are ways to protect your body from soreness and injury. 
I was reading through some NYTimes fitness articles this morning and came across one from last Spring. The article basically debunks all of the benefits of the warm up and cool down period of a workout. It references a study done that had three groups. They all did identical workouts, but one group added a warm up of a gentle bike ride, and one group added a cool down of a gentle bike ride. The results showed that the group that did the warm up had the least sore muscles the next day, while the group that did the cool down recorded levels of soreness identical to the control group (those who just did the workout). Basically, the cool down did nothing to ease muscle soreness.
The workout that was studied was more of a strength training exercise: lunges and barbells, so I wondered how the study relates to just running. Luckily, they also studied the same in soccer players during a sprint exercise. The group that just sprinted and sat down was less sore than those that sprinted and then formally cooled down with jogging and stretching.
I’m not an exercise science professional, but I found this to be an interesting study. We’ve talked here before about how stretching after each workout doesn’t necessarily hold the same benefits as commonly thought, so I wanted to add this piece of information for those of you interested. Here’s a link to the article and the study.
I still don’t really think that walking for five minutes before or after a run will affect soreness, but hey, maybe I’ll experiment a bit and report back!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
The value of warming up can’t be stressed enough in my opinion… And the best way to warm up? Ease into the workout that you’ll be doing to get those particular muscles ready to go.
Cool downs are probably good for maybe bringing yourself down off the high of a workout, but I can’t see how it would really help your soreness really.
<3 NYT's fitness articles
I agree. I find that when I’m pushing my speed during the last minute on the treadmill to get the magical “3.1 miles,” the “shock” of having the treadmill just halt after the allotted thirty minutes can be jarring. But, in a way, I make up for it by walking to the towel/disinfectant-spray-bottle station and back to wipe down my machine.
In sum, I don’t like to go from running 6.5 miles an hour to just standing still (which is why I try to nab the treadmills that have the built-in two-minute cool down that doesn’t take away from my thirty minutes of running!), but I don’t think a cool down really helps with soreness or the overall quality of my exercise.
Nice topic!