Should You Avoid Ice Baths?

I recently looked at the abstract of an article posted by Patrick Ward, a Sport Scientist for the Seattle Seahawks which led to a lot of discussion (in the form of Facebook comments, which I believe to be a higher level of discourse than tweeting).  The abstract for the article, published in The Journal of Physiology, Post-exercise cold water immersion attenuates acute anabolic signalling and long-term adaptations in muscle to strength training, can be found here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP270570/abstract?campaign=woletoc

The final sentence, in response to findings that both increases in muscle size--as well as certain physiological markers that are responsible for such increases--were reduced in the group receiving Cold Water Immersion Therapy (CWI), was this:

"The use of CWI as a regular post-exercise recovery strategy should be reconsidered."

Whoa.  Ice baths have long been a recognized recovery modality, and this paper at least seems on the surface to suggest that we've actually been hindering progress.   Let's take a closer look at the study and what it may mean:  

• First, and most important, “Regular...strategy” is a hedge.  We'll circle back around to that later, because it is is central to the discussion.  

The cool demeanor of Junior Dos Santos sitting in this may be the thing about him that intimidates me most.

• Trained vs. untrained: There is a big difference between being ‘active’ as the subjects in the study were described, and having significant resistance training experience.  This affects the response to exercise as well as the execution. Presumably, someone with a greater training age is going to be able to elicit greater intensities from a given exercise prescription.  Are they going to benefit more from CWI due to those greater intensities?  On the flip side, consider the soreness that a beginning weight-trainer feels after their first few workouts.  Despite those lesser intensities, one could easily argue that the stress of one’s first few workouts takes the trainee much further beyond their current personal homeostasis. Are the beginners then the ones who might benefit from CWI?

• Lack of a true control: there was no group that received no recovery intervention; the studies were really a comparison between two different modalities (Active recovery and CWI).   This may seem like research nitpicking, but it’s not.  It is much, much harder than it seems to design and implement a great experiment, but we need to take limitations in the research into account and consider that CWI may be better than nothing, just not quite as good as Active Recovery.

• The body adapts to the demands imposed on it.  If those demands are made easier, the stimulation for adaptation is less.   Josh "Chimpy" Halbert quoted "a cell" in his FB comment post.  I’m not sure who coined this originally, but it's food for thought...

"But if I don't find it stressful, why should I ever bother to adapt??"  

(Do me the favor of pretending that this poor lady is actually a human cell subjected to the stress of exercise.  This was the first opportunity I've had to insert a Roy Lichtenstein heroine into a post, and I didn't want to pass it up).  

If we are just training for hypertrophy, why not just reduce the training volume and               decrease the (over?)stimuli that is requiring additional recovery support for           adaptation?  That’s a big question. 

• That said, we should not be too quick to discard CWI even if the worst (It reduces results, ice is terrible!!) is true: There are other stressors athletes will be exposed to of which hypertrophy is not an intended result.  The primary ones are skill/technical practice and competition.  Though these may not seem to be, or actually be, as intense as resistance training, they will induce stresses on the body which may make recovery and adaptation difficult.  This is especially true of combat, collision and contact sports, but is also true of non-contact sports such as tennis or volleyball.  Cycling CWI in as a recovery modality for skill/practice sessions, or following competition in the midst of a busy season when precise control of stressors is more difficult, may improve recovery from resulting tissue traumas that can inhibit performance but are tough to prevent during busy periods.

I mentioned early on that the author’s use of the word “Regular” was a hedge. It is, but it’s also reality.  An idea that has gained popularity is that our recovery methods should be periodized and changed just as our stimuli should be.  

(I am currently in a cycle where I do not utilize good nutrition or restful sleep as part of my recovery regimen).

And just like I can imagine certain situations where I might have a patient or client do a seated knee extension (truly, I can), there are plenty (many more) situations where CWI is probably appropriate.  It’s just another example of taking what you know and trying to fit the pieces together as best you can for your patients, clients, athletes, or self.  

Nobody throws Baby out with the Ice bath Water.  Or something.