It seems crazy to voluntarily plunge your body into freezing cold water, but increasing scientific evidence supports the idea of ice baths enhancing recovery and performance. Ranging from minimized muscle soreness all the way to improved psychological well-being, ice baths are an effective way of improving an athletes sporting journey.
How will ice baths transform my training?
Reaching your full potential as an athlete requires lots of hard work. Cold-water immersion has been shown to lessen delayed onset muscle soreness while furthermore mitigating inflammation and promoting tissue healing, ensuring muscles and joints remain in their best condition which allows you to train to the best of your ability with smaller post-exercise discomfort, not letting it affect your future training sessions and reduce improvement.
Ice baths prompt the body to vasoconstrict (constriction of the blood vessels), this can help reduce blood flow to injured areas which can reduce swelling and bruising. Contrastingly, cold exposure also triggers a later vasodilation (opening of the blood vessels) which allows for increased blood flow- aiding overall blood circulation, the removal of waste and the delivery of nutrients. Therefore, ice baths give you the best of both worlds and are definitely something to implement into your sport recovery!
Shocking possible benefits of ice baths
Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health disorders, but did you know that ice baths or other methods of cold exposure are actually worthwhile ways of combating these disorders. Along with distracting our minds, cold exposure results in the release of beta-endorphins and noradrenaline which can reduce symptoms of depression, relieve stress and help manage pain. The art of pushing your body and mind to do something uncomfortable itself can provide its own rush and is an incredible skill that can be applied in all aspects of life to become more successful – for some, this may even be the sole factor for taking an ice bath.
But how do I actually do an ice bath?
An optimal ice bath temperature is between 10-15 degrees Celsius, this can be achieved with around a 3:1 water to ice ratio. You should attempt to stay in an ice bath for as long as you can, however do not exceed the 15 minute mark but instead use this as a target time to work towards. During the cold plunge, focus on your breathing, try to relax and enjoy it, remember that the more times you take an ice bath the easier it will become and the more you will look forward to it. After the cold plunge, you must not go straight into a hot shower but instead let the body naturally warm-up, however after around 10 minutes if you are still cold then you may use a warm shower to raise your body temperature.
For some, an ice bath doesn’t just have to be about recovery: it can be the first challenge you have to overcome in your day; it can put you on the right track to make all of your days productive; it can be the one time of your day where the only thing you think about is the freezing water on your body rather than anything else that may be worrying you; it could be the new habit you start to put you ahead of all your competition. Now that you have all the information, the only thing left to do is take your first ice bath!