Many elite athletes use ice baths for recovery after a race or a hard core workout.  This is another controversial subject, but the team at Anderson Peak Performance believe that it is a practice that can aid in your body’s recovery after exercise.  Cold water inversion or ‘ice baths’ are popular because they provide effective pain relief and a reduction in inflammation to keep you on the right track for your athletic goals.

The theory of cold water inversion is to use cryotherapy to recover faster and reduce muscle pain.  When you exert yourself physically your muscles experience micro-tearing which causes pain and inflammation, but ultimately the result is muscle strength and growth.  No pain, no gain.  When this occurs, lactic acid builds up in your bloodstream, causing toxicity.   You do not want to be a toxic athlete.  An ice bath is believed to constrict blood vessels and flush out toxicity (waste products like lactic acid) from your tired muscles, while reducing swelling and muscle tissue breakdown.  Then when you are re-warming your blood flow speeds up.  Think of  it as a flushing of the toxins in your body.  Cold moves the toxins out and when you warm up your vessels open up and speed in fresh oxygenated blood.

Are you ready for this invigorating, bracing method?  A few good tips are to fill the tub with cold water after your hard core workout or run.  Next,  add the equivalent of a bag of ice or a bunch of ice packs to the water.  Some people use two 2 liter bottles filled 3/4 and frozen as an alternative.   The temperature will get to an average of 50 degrees F.  You may want to keep a thermometer with you to avoid the bath getting too cold.  Try to stay in the bath for 10 to 20 minutes.

Some athletes like to wear neoprene booties, a down jacket and hat.  Most people need a distraction like an MP3 player, something to read and/or rehydrate with.  Use whatever it takes to stay in the tub long enough for it to be effective.

If you don’t have a tub to sit in, you can use ice packs or even rinse down with cold water.  This cold water flush works well with a hand-held shower head.  The technique is to start on the sides of your legs (ITB area) and move the shower from the feet upwards allowing the veins to flush the toxins away from the lower extremity.  After the sides, flush hamstrings, quads and abductors.

Studies have been done on cryotherapy with no definitive conclusions, but elite athletes continue to demand ice baths after a strenuous workout.  More research is needed but I believe that you should try it.  It won’t hurt you and may help.  Studies do show, on the other hand, that passive recovery is not effective and  hot baths may actually decrease recovery.

Most ice bathers will wait 30 to 60 minutes (after ice bath) to get into a warm shower.  Let me know if you have experienced this approach to athletic recovery.  Today may be the day for you to try something new in your  road to athletic excellence.

Dr. A