Cold Water Immersion for Athletes

Many athletes use `cold water immersion` post-exercise with the belief that it will assist in muscle recovery and improve performance... But does it?
Bret Contreras, a Strength & Conditioning Specialist (2015) evaluates the current evidence with regards to cold water immersion post-exercise and reviews its physiological effects below.

The key findings of this review were:

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1) Cold water immersion substantially attenuated long-term gains in muscle mass and strength (Roberts et al, 2015)
2) Delayed and/or suppressed the activity of satellite cells and kinases in the mTOR pathway during recovery from strength exercise (Roberts et al, 2015)
3) Cold water immersion doesn’t appear to outperform a Placebo (Broatch et al, 2014)
4) It doesn’t seem improve sleep architecture (Robey et al, 2013)
5) A major review paper didn’t approve of it for treating muscle soreness (Bleakley et al, 2012)
6) A review paper concluded that cold water immersion benefited endurance athletes in terms of recovery, but not strength/power athletes (Chow et al, 2015)

Conclusions:
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"The authors from the Roberts et al. (2015) study propose that regular deficits in acute hypertrophy signalling in muscle after cold water immersion accumulated over time, which in turn resulted in smaller improvements in strength and hypertrophy. The present findings contribute to an emerging theme that cold water immersion and other strategies (e.g., antioxidant supplements, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) that are intended to mitigate and improve resilience to physiological stress associated with exercise may actually be counterproductive to muscle adaptation.


This investigation offers the strongest evidence to date that using cold water immersion on a regular basis may interfere with training adaptations. No previous study has investigated the effect of cold water immersion on muscle hypertrophy after strength training.”


Its good news for endurance athletes, as cold water immersion seemed to have benefited endurance athletes in terms of recovery, but not strength/power athletes (Chow et al, 2015).


The other key findings from the review can be seen listed above!