Recovery culture can turn a simple tool into a rule. This Become Elite breakdown gives ice baths a more useful frame: the benefits of cold water immersion can reduce soreness and perception of fatigue, but timing matters when adaptation is the goal.
Full transcript with clickable timestamps linking back to the source video.
bula which is Fijian for hello I'm currently on the island of Fiji right now and a short four day vacation before heading back to the United States and I thought you know what even though I'm on vacation I'm still going to get you guys a quality 200 Tuesday so here we go so like all of my two minute Tuesday's this video has not gonna be under two minutes and I don't even know for sure if it's actually gonna come out on Tuesday so I really need to change the name of this I mean they think I'm like a topic Tuesday or Science Saturday or something along those lines so help me out comment a name that you think I should title this kind of series and just let me know give me your feedback so ice baths if you've never heard of ice baths is exactly what it sounds like it is literally a bath filled with ice and the whole idea behind ice baths is that after strenuous exercise you plunge your entire body or your lower half of your body depending on your sport into this water so that reduces inflammation reduces delayed onset muscle soreness and just helps speed up recovery you're in this ice bath anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes and you can also do different types of things such as contrast water therapy we're switching from a cold tub to a hot tub back to a cold tub back to a hot tub or there's different forms even like a cryotherapy we're in a cryo chamber I will break down the science of that unless you guys know if these are worth it if you should abandon them what you should do first where does this soreness come from during intense exercise you break down your muscle fibers this sounds bad was actually a good thing you actually get tiny microscopic tears in your muscle fibers or micro trauma it is this micro trauma these tiny microscopic tears that causes that delayed onset muscle soreness that you feel in your body 24 to 72 hours after that workout it's not that lactic acid the lactic acid is that burning sensation you feel during long periods of exercise the ice bath is believed to actually reduce that inflammation as well as reduce the tissue breakdown of the muscles so that you don't get a sore and you can recover faster then as you exit the ice bath and warm back up that increased blood flow back to your
increased blood flow back to your muscles is said to improve your circulation and again speed up the process even more but what is happening what does the science say then a Cochrane review of 17 different studies looking at Coldwater immersion they found that ice baths actually have a beneficial effect on your muscle soreness so that is awesome to find we literally have a great review of a huge amount of reviews stating that this ice bath is more beneficial than going home in doing nothing or so called passive recovery so far so good then in a different research review of 13 different studies Bosen and team found that contrast water therapy was better at reducing delayed onset muscle soreness than passive recovery again that is two great points in favor of ice baths but we've kind of already known that in nose professional sports team anywhere in the world after games do athletes just go home and sit on the couch for 72 hours they're always doing some form of active recovery such as cycling for 15 minutes at a low intensity going on a walk doing some dynamic stretching maybe doing some static stretching or yoga maybe they're getting a massage or doing those compression sleeves on their legs or doing something some form of active recovery to help their bodies now what I want to know what the general population wants to know now too is how do these ice baths compared to those other forms of active recovery how much better are the ice baths because let's face it those ice baths are painful working up [Applause] okay those 20 minutes that we just sit in that grueling ice cold tub better be a lot better than doing just cycling for 15 minutes however when those reviews looked at ice baths in comparison to active recovery the results weren't so good so despite comparing contrast water therapy to a large number of other recovery interventions including cold water immersion warm water immersion compression active recovery and stretching there was little to no evidence for superior treatment intervention and that's kind of like a
intervention and that's kind of like a dagger in the heart that's literally saying that taking that 20 minutes of pain in the ice bath is literally no better for you than sitting in a warm bath for the same amount of time and that is almost no better for you or no different for you than hopping on a bike for 15 minutes and then doing a little bit of stretching so now as an athlete you're looking at like the risk or reward why do you sit in a very painful 20 minute ice bath that would have the same rewards that same benefit to you as sitting in a room temperature tub or just with you don't even have to get wet anymore now you can just go for a walk and stretch and that will have that same benefit to you as the other methods in another study titled the effects of cold water immersion and active cover young information and sell stress responses in human skeletal muscle after resistance exercise that is quite the title but even though the title is intense the actual study was pretty simple all they're really doing is just looking at the inflammation and the cellular response inside the athlete's legs compared to the ones who take an ice bath and compared to the ones who actually just go into an active recovery session such as going for a walk and stretching and they actually found that these responses did not differ significantly between cold water immersion and active recovery and their results suggested that cold water immersion is no more effective than active recovery for minimizing the inflammatory and stress response in muscle after a resistant exercise that's a lot of big words but again we're just seeing the same exact thing there's no difference between an ice bath or contrast water therapy and active recovery sessions so we're starting to see this pattern come up with ice baths another thing gets asked a lot about is cryotherapy cryotherapy how does cryotherapy fit into all this and if you don't know what cryotherapy is is this really high-tech looking type of recovery that costs a lot of money but you go into this chamber pod and this super cooled air sometimes - 160 degrees Fahrenheit is kind of sprayed at you you're only in there for a couple minutes but that super cooled air is supposed to give you that same response but a much faster time line now how does that compare to
time line now how does that compare to ice baths and how does that compare to active recovery well I found a very cool study by dr. Eric Holman how're ho an hour at the university of applied sciences and arts of southern Switzerland where they looked at the differences between cold water immersion and partial body cryotherapy treatments and the differences of recovery after 72 hours in the study there was actually a physiological difference between the 19 men that partook in the study at the moment of the ice bath or cryo chamber but within hours there was no difference in how the men felt and no measurable physiological benefit of one treatment over the other so we're just seeing a lot of the same everything's the same we're finding the cryotherapy chamber is gives pretty much the same benefit as an ice bath which kind of gives the same benefit as active recovery session but for me personally if I'm looking at the different recovery methods maybe spending hundreds of dollars to go into the cryotherapy chamber might not be worth it putting if I have to pay for it out of my own pocket and maybe hopping in an ice bath might not be worth it to me for that 20 minutes of pain when instead I can get the same effect for those two things by hopping on a bike for ten minutes and then doing maybe a little yoga session foam rolling and unfortunately as I dug deeper and deeper into more and more research studies I just kept on finding more of the same more that there was inconclusive evidence more that this is you know pretty much the same benefit as this or that you can't really measure soreness because it is not an objective measurement it's so subjective and a subjective measurement means that it's based off feeling something that you can't accurately measure so let's look at something that you can accurately measure let's look at something objective about these ice baths when we look at this new study titled the influence of post-exercise cooling on muscle oxygenation and blood volume changes they actually had participants go on a strenuous run and then after the run put one of the legs into an ice bath and the other leg outside of it and then measured the physiological differences between the these two legs and in the study they actually found that swelling was reduced in the leg in the ice bath they therefore stated the ice baths could have a positive effect on muscle
could have a positive effect on muscle recovery but there's always a but so there have been some studies that say the ice baths can reduce inflammation aka the amount of blood that's flowing to a certain muscle however that lack of blood flow could actually slow down the muscle protein synthesis which is the process that the muscle rebuilds itself after an injury or strain or just a strenuous workout it turns out that that inflammation that is being inhibited by the ice baths might actually be needed for recovery more and more research is coming out that some inflammation is actually a good thing in fact this is exactly what was found in a study where athletes partook in a three-month long strength course they broke up the athletes in the study into two groups one group the athletes did nothing after the workouts and the other groups that did a ice bath and they found that the athletes that partook in cold water immersion after their workouts actually reduced long-term gains in muscle mass and strength and reduced the activation of key proteins and satellite cells and skeletal muscle up to two days after strength exercise it was actually determined that individuals who use strength training to improve athletic performance recover from an injury or main main their health should reconsider whether to use Coldwater immersion as a muscle therapy treatment so in layman's terms and ice baths might help you feel better in the short term by reducing inflammation and reducing the sensation of delayed onset muscle soreness but that process of restricting blood flow to muscles after workouts could actually negatively affect your muscle recovery and growth in the longer term now that actually completely contradicts the previous study that was mentioned that says that there was no difference in inflammation between athletes that took an ice bath and athletes that didn't so now we have two questions do ice baths really reduce inflammation in our bodies and if they do do we want them to and that's something that actually needs to be explored further by the scientific community and we can't really make a definitive answer on ice baths until that is answered but we can say that cold water immersion or contrast baths after a single hard workout offers some temporary pain relief at least at an athlete's perceived experience of a faster
perceived experience of a faster recovery in general an active recovery session should still be the gold standard of recovery low intensity steady-state cardio static stretching dynamic stretching yoga foam rolling massage compression all these things will help your body recover and they should actually be done immediately after that strenuous workout or game or training session as well as the day after a couple days after when you're experiencing that delayed onset muscle soreness and of course passive recovery or complete rest after periods of intense exercise is not an effective way to recover with all this science and technical jargon just please understand that if you do a strenuous workout playing a strenuous game or do whatever you will be sore there's no way around it but that soreness is a good thing it means that you've torn your muscle fibers microscopically and that your body is now working to rebuild them bigger and stronger so that you can go out and run faster play harder and just take everything up to the next level and instead of looking for ways to really reduce that soreness instead focus on things that your body really needs which is a good active recovery session proper nutrition and just time blue might that was today's 2 minute Tuesday that probably wasn't 2 minutes for sure was not 2 minutes and probably maybe he wasn't even on Tuesday so again please leave me a comment below about what you think I should change this title to signed Saturday I don't know topic Tuesday please leave me a suggestion I really appreciate it I that's the video if you guys liked it hit the thumbs up button subscribe and I'll see you on the next one I [Music]
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
After hard sessions, cold water can reduce swelling, soreness, and the heavy feeling that follows repeated sprinting or contact. The felt experience is often simple: less ache, more readiness, and a calmer body.
Training works because the body receives stress and rebuilds. If cold is used too aggressively after strength or hypertrophy work, it may blunt some of the signaling that drives adaptation. the science of recovery (our deep dive on recovery) (our deep dive on recovery) for health and growth are related, but they are not identical.
In a congested season, readiness can matter more than maximizing every adaptation signal. During a building phase, athletes may choose to let the training stress breathe before cooling it down. Context decides the dose.
Ice baths are not inherently good or bad. They are a tool. Use them when the next performance is close, soreness is high, or the nervous system needs a reset. Give the body more time after sessions designed primarily to build strength.
The protocol should serve the athlete, not the ritual itself.
Use cold water immersion after matches or intense running when short-term readiness matters.
Avoid making ice baths automatic after every strength session.
Track soreness, sleep, mood, and next-day output so the protocol is guided by evidence from your own body.
