Taking an Ice Bath After Working Out Might Impair Muscle Growth

[longknife]

Just the thought of climbing into a tub of ice makes me shudder. How can anyone do it?

But then…

I remember a Christmas in Austria when my friend took me to a small farm that was also an inn. They had a sauna in a separate building and my friend and I luxuriated in it – until he had us run outside in our birthday suits to the icy cold night.

I never felt the cold.

New research found fewer signs of muscle growth in legs treated with ice baths than in legs recovering at room temperature. Published in the Journal of Physiology, the study adds to other, more long-term work suggesting that ice baths post-workout might slow down muscle building, says study co-author Cas Fuchs, a doctoral researcher in the department of human biology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Some research still shows that hopping into cold water after a workout soothes sore muscles. Or, at least, it offers a placebo effect that keeps athletes and their coaches returning to the tub. But some newer evidence indicates that ice baths also keep people from building more muscle after a workout, particularly when it comes to resistance training, Fuchs says.

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[Thunk]

What I've done to cool down after a workout...and for a sore lower back...is begin with a hot shower...and slowly turn the water temp down until it is eventually cold.

It works great if you do it slow enough!

 

[luchitociencia]

What is the benefit of using ice after all?

Is people aware that our body exposed to cold temperatures without protection is the cause of arthritis when you get old?

You better watch out and pay no attention to those extreme methods invented to help your workout experience or claiming some benefit for your body.

I met with people exposed to cold temperatures in different ways, like a woman who walked for years wearing regular sneakers on snow days, or a man who used to put his hands directly exposed to the cold air from air conditioners he was repairing, to cool off himself in Summer time

Like these two cases, are the thousands of similar cases of people paying the price for exposing themselves to cold and frozen temperatures. We are not born in a frozen environment with natural protection as the polar bear, then better to avoid such kind of exposure today in order to avoid the harmful and painful consequences when we get older.