Ice Baths Post-Training May Help Recovery While Hurting Your Gains

This popular tool has some utility but also has a potential cost
7 min read
By: Dylan Dacosta

Sparknotes:

• A new meta-analysis shows that cold water immersion post-exercise can help reduce immediate markers of subjective fatigue and recovery, such as rate of perceived exertion (RPE) and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS.)

• Most protocols were at water temperatures of 15 degrees celsius or less and for 10-20 minutes.

• Long-term data show that routine exposure to cold water immersion post-exercise can lead to lesser muscle mass and strength gains than normal or active recovery.

• Other than boosting immediate markers of subjective recovery, cold water immersion post-exercise is not a great strategy if you're aiming to build muscle and strength.

If you’ve ever seen post-game routines from high-level athletes, I’m confident you’ve seen the ice bath in use. Whether it's NBA players using them after a game or a pair of NFL brothers taking a dip in a frozen lake for their “post-workout recovery.”

This tool has become increasingly popular online in the last while. And with badass cosigns such as the one above, it’s no surprise. 

This adds to the relentless wave of new/recycled fitness and wellness fads that never ceases to slow down. And the worst part is, a lot of them have some utility. 

“Some utility” just isn’t that marketable, unfortunately. 

With this in mind, a new meta-analysis looked at cold water immersion and its effects on recovery after exercise. 

I’ll be going over the study's results and adding some details of the existing literature that puts this tool into context so that you can make a more informed decision about its application. 

The aforementioned paper by Xiao et al. (1) compiled the results from 20 studies that were either randomized controlled trials or crossover trials (that's where everyone does both interventions.)

Here’s a brief list of the characteristics of the paper and what it analyzed:

• 360 males and 56 females.

• It measured either DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness,) RPE (rate of perceived exertion,) countermovement jump, and several recovery biomarkers. 

• Measurement periods were immediately after the intervention, 24 hours after and 48 hours. 

• Exercise interventions included were: resistance training, football/rugby matches, sprinting, long-distance running, cycling, jumping, swimming and jiu-jitsu.

• The water temperature had to be below 15 degrees celsius and was most commonly around 10. 

• Legs were most often submerged, and some studies went up to shoulders. 

Results

The results showed some mild benefits to cold water immersion for increasing immediate subjective recovery metrics. 

Whenever there was an effect, it tended to subside at 24 and 48 hours. 

The performance of the countermovement jump was better after the cold water immersion. At 24 hours, the cold water immersion groups had worse outcomes than the controls and at 48 hours, there was no difference. 

Each green dot with a line in it represents a single study. The diamonds represent the study's pooled effect at each time point. 

For DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness,) the cold water immersion groups had less perceived soreness than the control groups immediately after and at 24 hours. At 48 hours, there was no significant effect, but it still leaned toward a small benefit for cold water immersion. 

Immediately, there was a medium effect favouring cold water immersion and a small one at 24 hours. At 48 hours, there was still a small effect favouring the cold water groups, but the effect wasn’t statistically significant. 

For rate of perceived exertion (RPE,) there was a medium effect favouring the cold water groups immediately after the interventions, but this went away at 24 and 48 hours. 

A medium effect was observed immediately after the intervention, and there was no significant or meaningful difference at 24 and 48 hours. 

What Does This Mean?

If you were really into freezing your ass off post-workout, this might have confirmed your biases. If not, this may have sparked some curiosity. So let’s put this into context. 

For athletes in season, results like this are pleasing. If you have back-back games or competitions, spending 10 minutes in cold water (around 10 degrees celsius) after your workout or match may help with your short-term subjective recovery markers. 

You don’t want to be sore if you have another game or competition in the following few days. On the other hand, I’m also sure you want to feel recovered more quickly. These improvements could make a meaningful difference in getting you prepped to perform well again on a short schedule. 

Aside from that, there's nothing else to get too excited about, at least from an honest reading of this data. 

What Does the Long-Term Data Say?

One area where folks get into trouble with research interpretation is when acute data is extrapolated into long-term outcomes. 

In this case, faster recovery could allow you to train harder and more often. And this increase in volume would lead to better gains in the gym. 

The only issue is assuming no downsides to consistent post-exercise cold water exposure. Unfortunately, this assumption would appear to be wrong. 

One study by Fyfe et al. (2) had 16 untrained men undergo a 7-week training program where half did cold water immersion in a 10-degree celsius pool after every session and half just sat in a standard room after each session. 

Strength gains were similar on the bench press and leg press, but the control group saw greater increases in their quadriceps cross-sectional area. On the other hand, the cold water group saw no increase in their quadriceps cross-sectional area, even though they were beginners. 

Circles represent the control subjects, and triangles represent the cold water subjects. The bars represent the group averages, and each circle/triangle represents individuals. 

Another study by Roberts et al. (3) showed similar results. 24 young men with one year of resistance training experience went through a 12–week lower body training program twice per week. 

One group did 10 minutes of cold water immersion in a 10 degrees Celsius pool after every workout, while the other group did 10 minutes of low-intensity cycling. 

Both groups saw significant gains in their quads via MRI, but the active recovery had three times the gains than the cold water group. 

For strength, a similar pattern emerged. Both groups saw increases in their leg press 1RM and leg extension 1RM; the active recovery group had ~44% better gains on the leg press and around double the gains on the leg extension than the cold water group. 

Applications

The downside is that we don’t have a lot of long-term outcome data on the impacts of consistent cold water exposure post-workout. The data we do have does not show in a good light, at least not for resistance training outcomes. 

This does not apply to cold showers either. All of this data is on actual submersion for a decent chunk of time (usually 10 or more minutes) at a temperature at least below 15 degrees Celsius, but more often around 10 degrees. 

From the research we do have available, it’s safe to say the Watt brothers didn’t unlock some key to maximizing recovery. On the other hand, that polar dip may have helped if they trained hard and had a game the next day. 

If they were trying to maximize their offseason gains, that dip would do the exact opposite of what they want. 

I will also say that if you simply enjoy freezing your ass off, for whatever reason your masochistic heart desires, this doesn’t mean you need to stop. 

Most of us aren’t elite athletes trying to optimize every ounce of our gains. Enjoyment matters too. So if you love this activity, keep on chuggin’. Just be aware that it might hurt your gains. 

Alternatively, if you saw some athletes or influencers pushing this or trying to sell you something along these lines, it’s likely some bullsh*t, which is expected from many fitness fads out there. 

Conclusion

• Cold water immersion after your workout may help with increasing your subjective recovery right after your workout to 24 hours after.

• This tool will be most beneficial for athletes/competitors in-season who will need to compete soon after a hard workout or competition.

• If done consistently, it may reduce your muscle and strength gains from training. 

Cheers,
Coach Dylan 🍻

References:

1.Effects of cold water immersion after exercise on fatigue recovery and exercise performance — meta analysis
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2023.1006512/full

2. Cold water immersion attenuates anabolic signaling and skeletal muscle fibre hypertrophy, but not strength gain, following whole-body resistance training
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31513450/

3. Post-exercise cold water immersion attenuates acute anabolic signalling and long-term adaptations in muscle to strength training
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26174323/