Ice, Ice, Baby: Ice Baths

By now you have probably seen or heard of dipping your body in a giant tub of ice after a workout to get after that much needed recovery.  The people promoting this are also likely telling you that this is the key to getting faster and unlocking improvements faster.

Afterall, being in a tub of ice is a mental battle of its own so it's like paying your debts in a faster, more intense way, right? It all depends on your goals and runners may be more lucky than lifters. This week we explore beyond the tip of the iceberg for ice baths.

Summary Outline:

• Taking The Plunge: The Ice Bath
• Which Athlete Recovers Benefits?
• A Body’s Conversation: Debrief
• Summary

Taking The Plunge: The Ice Bath

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If you have not heard of it, one of the most popularized recovery techniques for athletes in the last decade has been the ice bath. Originally found at running camps with garbage cans filled with ice and your local river post-workout, you can now find people paying top dollar for special cold water plunge tubs. 

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An ice bath is pretty much what it sounds like: a bath filled with ice and cold water. People, especially athletes, use it as a way to recover after intense physical activity, like running, playing sports, or working out.

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Here's how it works: After doing a lot of exercise, muscles can feel sore and tired. This happens because exercise can cause tiny damages to muscle fibers, and the body needs to repair these. An ice bath can help with this process. When someone sits in the cold water, it makes the blood vessels in their muscles get smaller (this is called "vasoconstriction"). Then, when they get out of the ice bath and warm up, the blood vessels open wider than before (this is called "vasodilation"). This process helps to flush out waste products (like lactic acid) that build up in muscles during exercise.

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People believe that this can reduce muscle soreness and improve recovery time, so they can get back to exercising sooner. It's important to note that while many athletes swear by ice baths, scientific studies give us mixed results about how effective they really are. Some studies show benefits, while others don't see much difference. Let’s take a closer look at some of that research now.

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Which Athlete Recovers Benefits?

In the early 2000s there were some conflicting studies that showed that there was a negative impact to individuals who underwent habitual cold water immersion or ice baths following workouts and others showing that there was no difference between those who took the plunge and those who did not. This inconclusiveness led to more studies being conducted across a variety of athletic endeavors and they came up with the more well synthesized results of today that have led to the social media craze of posting ice bath plunges:

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Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness Improvement (DOMS)

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Athletes have been shown to have an alleviation of DOMS following a cold plunge post-exericse. This improvement in reduced soreness appears to be somewhat variable depending on the individual but improvements can be noticed 24-hr, 48-hr, and 96-hr after ice baths following workouts. The one caveat seems to be whether the exercise included a high emphasis on eccentric (think of how your bicep lengthens as you come down from a bicep curl) exercises vs concentric (think about performing the bicep curl) with eccentric focus leading to no attenuation of soreness in some studies.

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Inflammation and Muscle Damage

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Studies have shown a small decrease in markers of muscle damage (creatine kinase) in the blood suggesting that some of the inflammatory repsonse post-exercise is attenuated following a cold water immersion. Unfortunately, this inflammatory response is important for certain cell-signalling processes that help improve muscle gains and future strength performance in the gym.

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Strength and Muscle Training Adapatations

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If you’re looking to pump the iron, the anabolic processes at the molecular level are impacted from your ice bath. You may want to think twice about using the plunge after leg day if you are looking to improve your strength or squat gains (or really any gains) as studies have shown that ice baths can have a negative impact in both the short term and the long term for resistance training adaptations.

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Power and Field Performance

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The good news that while strength gains in the gym may be attenuated, the ability to generate power is preserved. One of the proposed theories for this is that the hydrostatic pressure, like a gentle, even squeeze from the cold water, helps with the alleviated inflammation allowing for imoproved blood flow. On top of this, the mechanisms for strength for something like lifting are proposed to be different in nature than the explosive nature of strength in motion for sprinting or explosive movements, which tend to also be less maximal or isolated in nature.

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Endurance Performance 

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Aerobic activities appear unaffected by ice baths. Where resistance training adaptations and performance with respect to strength are attenuated from ice baths, time trials and training adaptations from endurance activities appear to remain unaffected. It can even be recommended to help alleviate soreness in preparation for situations where multiple days of harder efforts may be required. Unfortunately there also does not appear to be a performance advantage or an improvement in recovery time beyond reduction in soreness and small decreases in inflammation.

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The Recommendation: Should You Ice Bath Post-Workout?

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As it currently stands if you’re a runner and you enjoy ice baths, there is certainly no harm in adding this ritual to your weekly routine. If you’re someone who does not enjoy these or finds the setup cumbersome, you are not missing out on any super secret formula to success. At most you may feel a little more sore but your recovery from your workout is going to be your recovery from your workout. And if you are looking to get some gains in the gym, it is probably in your best interest to hold off anyway. Sometimes the saying “no pain, no gain” may have some merit, and this appears to be one of those contexts.

References 

1. Malta, E. S., Dutra, Y. M., Broatch, J. R., Bishop, D. J., & Zagatto, A. M. (2020). The effects of regular cold-water immersion use on training-induced changes in strength and endurance performance: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Sports Medicine, 51, 161-174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-020-01362-0
2. Leeder, J., Gissane, C., van Someren, K., Gregson, W., & Howatson, G. (2011). Cold water immersion and recovery from strenuous exercise: A meta-analysis. BJSM Online First, published on September 22, 2011 as 10.1136/bjsports-2011-090061. Retrieved from https://bjsm.bmj.com
3. Ihsan, M., Abbiss, C. R., & Allan, R. (2021). Adaptations to post-exercise cold water immersion: Friend, foe, or futile? Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 3, Article 714148. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2021.714148

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