Here are seven things you shouldn't do after hiking!
HowToTrip editors remind outdoor hiking enthusiasts,In hot weather, be sure to pay attention to these issues after hiking or mountain climbing!
1. Don’t sit down immediately
After outdoor activities, feeling tired, you may think squatting or sitting down will help you rest—but this is actually a mistake.
Sitting or squatting right after exercise can hinder the return of blood from your lower limbs, affect circulation, worsen fatigue, and in severe cases, lead to gravitational shock.
Therefore, after each workout, you should regulate your breathing, engage in some low-intensity activity—like taking a slow walk, doing light stretching, or simply taking deep breaths—to help blood flow back to your heart from your limbs. If possible, elevate your legs to aid circulation, repay your "oxygen debt," speed up recovery, and reduce fatigue. When you’re truly exhausted, ask a companion to support you while walking.
2. Don’t take a shower right away
Avoid taking a shower immediately after activity. Showering post-exercise increases blood flow to the skin, diverting too much blood to muscles and skin, which can reduce blood supply to the heart and brain. Mild effects include dizziness and blurred vision, while severe cases can lead to collapse or shock, and may also trigger other chronic illnesses.
Taking a cold shower right after exercising is especially unwise. During physical activity, your body’s metabolism intensifies, capillaries dilate, and you sweat heavily.A cold shower immediately afterward prevents proper heat dissipation, creating an imbalance of internal heat and external chill, disrupting your body’s equilibrium and making you more prone to illness.
The correct approach is to rest for a while after exercising, wait until your pulse stabilizes, and then take a warm shower.
3. Don’t eat immediately
During intense outdoor exercise, the central nervous system is highly excited. Under its influence, the parasympathetic nervous system—which manages internal organ functions—suppresses digestive system activity.
At the same time, during exercise, blood is redistributed throughout the body, prioritizing the needs of your working muscles, while reducing blood supply to abdominal organs. These factors weaken gastrointestinal motility and significantly reduce secretion from digestive glands. It takes time—20-30minutes after exercise—for these functions to normalize.
Eating right away will burden your digestive organs, disrupt their function, and may even cause various health problems.
4. Don’t over-supplement with sugar
After outdoor exercise, avoid eating large amounts of sugar. Overconsumption of sweets post-workout can rapidly deplete your body’s vitaminB1stores, leading to fatigue, loss of appetite, and hindering recovery.
Therefore, after strenuous exercise, it’s better to consume foods rich in vitaminB1—such as vegetables, liver, and eggs.
5. Don’t drink alcohol
Many people feel like having a drink or two after outdoor activities to unwind, but this isn’t advisable. After intense exercise, your body remains in an excitable state, and drinking alcohol at this time causes quicker absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, placing greater strain on your liver, stomach, and other organs than usual.
Long-term habits like this can lead to fatty liver, cirrhosis, gastritis, gastric ulcers, and other conditions. Drinking beer can also increase uric acid levels in the blood, irritating joints and potentially causing joint inflammation.
6.Don’t smoke immediately
Smoking right after exercise introduces a mix of air and smoke into your lungs. On one hand, this reduces oxygen levels, hinders the repayment of your “oxygen debt,” and makes it harder to relieve fatigue;
On the other hand, when the human body inhales such fog-laden air, it can affect gas exchange in the alveoli, leading to symptoms such as chest tightness, wheezing, difficulty breathing, dizziness, and fatigue due to insufficient oxygen supply after exercise.
7.Don’t “skip” the cool-down and relaxation activities
Practice has shown that relaxing cool-down activities can not only help return the excitement level of the exerciser’s cerebral cortex and their elevated heart rate and breathing frequency to the pre-exercise resting state through appropriate relaxation exercises, walking, massage, and rhythmic breathing relaxation routines.
Moreover, they also help alleviate muscle fatigue, reduce soreness and discomfort, and can prevent adverse effects such as dizziness, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and blurred vision after outdoor activities.Therefore, it is essential to perform sufficient relaxation exercises after every outdoor activity to aid recovery and enhance the effectiveness of the workout.
TanLuLv (www.tanlulv.com), your professional outdoor adventure and self-driving travel website.