When should I incorporate ice baths into my recovery?

Question

Drew Wartenburg · Answer

When should I incorporate ice baths into my recovery? The importance of recovery after hard training sessions is one that is far-reaching from nutrition to sleep at night. Ice bath or ice bathing is another technique that a lot of people use and there is some science behind it so it's worth looking up some of the actual sports science and evidence for the benefits of ice baths. Personally I don't like to have an athlete use ice baths regularly until you're at that peak performance time of a season when you really want to have the body recover from a training session as quickly as possible rather than any sort of residual effect over over days. Early in a training cycle I don't like the use of ice baths because I do like the body to use its own natural defenses and recovery mechanisms to sort of stew in the effects of training and then make gains based on that adaptation.

Malindi Elmore · Answer

When should I incorporate ice bath? Since my recovery, the short answer is never. The long answer is that new research shows that a cool leg is less capable of muscle protein synthesis. So, with the reduction in muscle temperature, you slow down the necessary processes and within the muscle to generate new proteins by reducing blood flow, you reduce the amount of building blocks or amino acids that can be transported to the muscle. So if you're trying to repair or build muscle, I'll just avoid what the ice bath. You can read more about this in the Journal of physiology from December 1st, 2019, some really excellent research demonstrating the fallacy around ice baths.

Mike Guevara · Answer

I actually have a cold Plunge in my home and it's a daily practice for me. The reason why I do it daily I do it daily for three minutes is because it allows me to create a mental fortitude that helps me fight through difficult times and situations in my life, being able to get into a cold plunge, that's 40 degrees Fahrenheit and sit there for three minutes. Minutes to water about just below Neck. Deep says, a lot about your mental mental toughness. And I think that always having that tool as equipment to remind yourself. You know, you can push through a lot is very, very important as far as recovery goes. There's not a lot of research that says that ice bathing is something that is going to help recovery. So I would say maybe one to two times per week to limit, getting used to the stimuli

John Sinclair · Answer

When should I incorporate ice baths into my recovery? This is a popular topic and what I would say about ice baths is that some forms of cryotherapy are not effective for some people they find it too uncomfortable and it's really challenging for them. But for those people that are looking to try to use an ice bath, there are certain environments where works great. One of them is down here in South Florida where it's hot and humid all the time. So immediately after training, you know, anywhere 10 or 15 minutes after training in your heart. It comes down your back to your close, to your resting heart rate. What I'd recommend is going into the ice bath right away, that will help normalize your thermo regulatory system and bring your body temperature down, which is a great way to do that. The other time we might do it, as I might do it a few hours after we're a strength workout. So I wouldn't do it immediately after a strength workout but I might do it a little bit later so that the hormones, get an opportunity to kind of flush through the system and promote some Alec response, then a couple hours after I might use that that ice bath to help restore and eliminate maybe some swelling of the joints and any other challenges that might come from that. So those would be the two times that I would use them.

Brad Hudson · Answer

Okay, when should you incorporate ice baths? Okay, or should you? Okay, so first of all, the science on ice baths looks like it helps more with intensity, with fast twitch fiber recovery. So I would use mainly these ice baths when you're doing high quality work in the specific phase, okay, or you're racing or you're in a phase where recovery is utmost important, okay? There's gonna be times when you don't wanna use ice baths because you're in an adaptive phase and you want your body to naturally be stressed out a little bit, okay, to improve fitness. So you don't always wanna use ice baths. You wanna use them more with quality and more when you're racing and, you know, especially between like a heat and a final or semifinal, okay, it's imperative you recover. We're not looking for an adaptive process. Now, how do you do ice baths? Okay, so first of all, the best temperature to use from the latest science looks to be around 59 degrees Fahrenheit, okay? And we don't wanna use it too long, okay? 11 to 15 minutes is the optimum time we wanna use ice baths. So the science is looking more on quality using them and 11 to 15 minutes for recovery. And it does look like fast twitch fibers and high quality work will benefit from this. Now, there's still science being done. There's some science on even how it can promote aerobic enzymes and whatnot. We're still learning, but play around with this, figure out what works best for you. And that's my recommendation.

Tim Crowley · Answer

Ice bathroom. One of those things that people either swear by them or don't like them at all. And the research is kind of mixed on this so my advice would be of you know people want to do that. Make sure you do it at the end of your workout and I would not do that every single day but there is some research out there that are shown that is may I suggest we do the inflammation process and sometimes the information process, what this does is actually stimulates the body to adapt and grow. So there's two schools of thought on this. I don't fall in any particular one. If I have athletes that really love ice past I think it works for them. That's fine. And if they don't that's fine too.

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"When should I incorporate ice baths into my recovery?"