Key Points:
- Ice baths have been popular with adult endurance athletes for a long time, and are claimed to reduce soreness and improve recovery
- The available evidence seems to indicate that post exercise ice ? or heat ? can reduce muscle soreness, and possibly reduce muscle microtrauma
- There is no consensus regarding improved recovery or performance
- Active recovery (meaning: a cool down jog or light cycling) clearly seems to be effective
- I advise caution for the young athlete, as the published studies are done on adult athletes
- I have a feeling there is more fad than fact here
I?ve noticed for a long time now that adult endurance athletes will often jump into an ice 
bath after a race or particularly strenuous training session. This practice is common in the triathlon and endurance running community. Like many things touted by elite adult athletes, the youth sports community seems to be giving this a try as well. I?ve seen this done at youth triathlon, youth running, and I?m now starting to see the ice bath plunge even at team sport events. So what?s the deal here? What?s supposed to be happening? Is there any evidence to support the claims?
The Belief And The Theory
I want to be clear that what we?re discussing here is jumping into an ice bath to help reduce muscle soreness, and not using ice for a swollen ankle or knee. Athletes who use ice baths usually do so for about 5 to 10 minutes.
Certain types of repetitive muscle exercise can cause injury to muscle fibers at the microscopic level. The micro damage actually leads to improved muscle performance and muscle growth over weeks of training, but in the first hours or days after intense exercise the muscles can become very sore. Athletes who use ice baths believe they are less sore, recover faster, and have better performance in the next training session.
Here?s what the ice bath is reported to do:
- Constrict blood vessels, speed up removal of exercise related metabolic products like lactic acid
- Reduce swelling
- Reduce tissue damage
Ideally, the legs then go through a rewarming process that is supposed to re-establish good circulation, improve healing, and improve performance.
Is There Any Evidence For Effectiveness?
The published evidence examining ice water baths is not conclusive, but generally favors use of the ice baths to reduce pain. Whether the ice bath actually improves performance though, is debatable.
This review article stated that the use of ice baths is very popular, supported by many national organizations, and seems to improve the athlete?s comfort level. However they noted that measurements of power production were sometimes reduced after ice baths.
Another study published in 2015 in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined a blood marker of muscle damage called myoglobin and found significant reductions in myoglobin with cold or heat as compared to no recovery treatment after exercise. The authors concluded that using either heat or cold reduced muscle damage from intense exercise. The interesting part here is that heat worked just as effectively as cold to reduce muscle damage.
There are a number of older studies, similarly showing that ice baths are effective in reducing pain, but inconclusive regarding improved performance.
And finally, there are a few studies that compared active recovery (such as a cool-down jog or light cycling, combined with dynamic or static stretching) to ice bath or cold bath. The few studies available don?t show any substantial benefit to the ice bath compared to active recovery.
Final thoughts
So there are a few things we can take away from this brief review.
- Ice baths done for a brief time (5 to 10 minutes max) seem to be helpful in reducing pain
- ?But heat might also be helpful in reducing pain
- Both ice and heat appear to reduce the amount of myoglobin released in the blood, indicating that either ice or heat may reduce muscle damage from exercise
- An active recovery cool down is important, regardless of whether ice or heat is used
- The studies are all done on adult athletes, so I advise caution in young athletes
Somehow I have a feeling the post-game ice bath will prove to be more fad than fact. But it?s probably not going away any time soon.
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