In the middle of 2021, where well-known athletes share a good part of their day to day, it is not unusual to see a ‘post’ on Instagram of a soccer player (or one of the four major American leagues) taking a bath in ice water after intense training or a big competition. 

For those unfamiliar with high-performance fitness training, the thought of suffering in icy water after getting beaten up while running doesn’t make any sense.

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But those who defend these devious practices claim that immersing yourself in ‘ice’ water (around 10 ° C) for 5 to 10 minutes not only improves muscle recovery but also sports performance in the future. But are there scientific studies that validate these claims? What do the experts say about these recommendations?

The journal Science Alert has compiled responses from various exercise physiology specialists on this topic. The first of them is James Broatch, an expert from the University of Victoria in this field, who undertook an investigation in which two groups were compared: on the one hand, people who took an ice bath after practicing sports and, on the other, individuals who were subjected to a placebo with which they were assured that they would have the same efficacy as that ice bath (a warm bath with a special supposed “recovery oil”, which was really a simple skin cleanser).

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Broatch explains that “participants in both the ice bath and placebo conditions rated their belief in the benefits of their assigned recovery condition similarly, which in turn translated into a similar recovery of leg extension strength over a 48-hour post-exercise period”.

Johanna Lanner, another specialist at the Karolinska Institutet in Exercise Physiology, explains that ice baths are effectively “reduces nerve impulse transmission and thus reduces the level of pain perception and ii) induces constriction of blood vessels in peripheral tissues (e.g., muscle) which results in reduced fluid diffusion that may assist in reducing exercise-induced acute inflammation”. 

For his part, Hakan Westerblad, an expert in muscle physiology from the same institute, points out that scientific studies in this regard show results ranging from minor positive effects to negative effects, passing through the absence of effects.

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The main problem in drawing conclusions in this regard derives from the differences between the exercises that one can perform, since it is not the same, for example, to train physical strength than resistance. 

Llion Roberts, from the Griffith University in Exercise Physiology, believes that these types of treatments can hamper the benefits of physical exertion when we have done strength exercises. 

But in the case of immersing ourselves after exercising the resistance, the results may be different: Christopher Mawhinney, an expert in sports science at the University of Mahidol in Thailand, assures that “Interestingly, there is evidence which suggests that cooling the exercised muscle increases the cellular signal which turns on mitochondrial biogenesis”.

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Mitochondrial biogenesis, one of the positive effects that comes from resistance training, is interesting because it generates adenosine triphosphate, a component of skeletal muscle, and provides energy and life to the body, so ice baths could help to amplify this benefit in the case of resistance.

Rogers, therefore, concludes that “Cold water immersion following strength exercise should be undertaken with caution or avoided. Its use following one-off circumstances like big sports events or endurance exercise is recommended, and may even provide additional benefits for subsequent endurance exercise performance”.

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As a summary, we could say that we should not try to use ice water as a remedy if we do not have sufficient knowledge about the type of routine carried out and that, in the case of having sufficient knowledge, they are used prudently after exercises resistance but not after strength exercises.

Image Credit: Getty

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