Ice Baths

Sean Quagmire

Hi, im reading a little about ice baths and there benefits after training. apparently the cold water tightens the blood vessels and drains out the lactic acid that makes muscles sore and stiff the next day.

has anyone tried them, are they effective?

Rob Carry

Sean Quagmire wrote: »

Hi, im reading a little about ice baths and there benefits after training. apparently the cold water tightens the blood vessels and drains out the lactic acid that makes muscles sore and stiff the next day.

has anyone tried them, are they effective?

I'm reading that book 'a fighter's heart' at the moment and it mentions that a former Olympic gold medalist (boxer) used them after training sessions, and that the practice was common in Olympic circles. They would have an ice bath and get a rub down afterwards and the lactic acid is supposedly gone. I think I'd try it in a hot country, not sure about here. You'd probably catch your death.

Khannie

I've heard that they're effective and that they're ineffective. I'd want to be pretty feckin' sure before hopping into freezing cold water with the sweat pissin' out of me that it was gonna benefit me in some way.

Sean Quagmire

Rob Carry wrote: »

I'm reading that book 'a fighter's heart' at the moment and it mentions that a former Olympic gold medalist (boxer) used them after training sessions, and that the practice was common in Olympic circles. quote]

Thats weird, im reading the same book at the moment and im at the exact same part?!
thats what got me thinknig about it... so far from waht iv read on the net this morning is that a good cold shower will have a similar effect. good for muscle repair...

p.s great book!

conor rowan

david gillick uses them regularly as part of his training regime as do most of the atheltes out in loughborough sports academy in the uk.

theyre meant to speed recovery thus allowing harder training sessions in a shorter schedule. im not sure how effective they would be if youre not training hard, itd hardly justify the effort of filling up all the tiny little ice trays every night!:p

Dragan

Back in my rugby days we used to do icebaths, I found them to be effective enough, although I would noticed if I skipped my post training potassium this would affect me more.

I have done Cryotheraphy, myself and a group of kickboxers went down to Wexford for the weekend and did 3 sessions of Cryotherapy each. The basic set up is 3 chambers, the first two are walk throughs, -10 and -50 each, the last is the one you stay in, -110 ( that’s celsius ).

That day I trained before my first session and in between the other sessions. Full weights training twice and some sparring once if I remember correctly. Each time I walked out I felt close to dead, after the body had heated back up I was starvin, would feed up and train again.

The maximum time they would let us stay in was 4 minutes, I wanted to do 5 but they wouldn't let us give that a shot our first time out and said the next time we go down we will be allowed to. I can honestly say that all 12 of us felt solid and beneficial effects for about 3 months afterwards. It was an excellent experience for anyone who is interested and hardly expensive either.

Roper

The Cryotherapy treatment in Poland has been cited as a factor in the poor performance of the Irish Rugby team in the 07 world cup by some. It's not scientifically proven to any real extent. There's evidence of sprint times being down, power fall offs etc.

The ice bath thing works, but you'd want to be training hard to make it worth your while because it's not very nice.

dunkamania

I heard that icing increases muscle mass, without increasing power, any truth to this?

ch252

They are only used by athletes who train very regularly, I used them when I was doing football, rugby and MMA and found them helpful for recovery. I only took them after Gaelic training and sometimes rugby because the whole team did. I'd recommend it if you train most days of the week, two or 3 sessions per week and its not really necessary, any more and it could be worth looking into IMO.

Dragan

Roper wrote: »

The Cryotherapy treatment in Poland has been cited as a factor in the poor performance of the Irish Rugby team in the 07 world cup by some. It's not scientifically proven to any real extent. There's evidence of sprint times being down, power fall offs etc.

Personally i would doubt that. As i said, 12 of us did it and for anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months or so afterwards we felt great. A lot of the people there were trainers, physio's etc and kept a close watch on there performance, especially those who at the time were training for marathons, fights and a few for gradings if i remember correctly.

If they want to find something to blame performance on i suggest they look at team cohesion.

And dunk, not that i am aware of mate. If this were true it would be rampant in the Bodybuilding scene where's it's size/shape etc that matter.

Khannie

I knew I'd read about a study saying they were ineffective..... Link.

Dragan

Khannie wrote: »

I knew I'd read about a study saying they were ineffective..... Link.

My problem with that study it is using pain as a marker. Various things might affect a subject interpretation of pain. Also, it is using this as a basis to say the method is not sound. Firstly post training pain is not caused solely by lactic acid buildup, there would also be damage to muscle fibres and depletion of electrolytes.

To properly look at it as a method of aiding recovery you would need a decent study with two groups of untrained athelets of a decent size ( say 40 to 60 subjects in each group ) who were assigned programs and diets that were monitored and one group used the ice bath. Markers of performace increase would then be taken before, during and after the training cycles ( I would like to see 6 to 12 weeks myself ) and then compare them.

It's about performance, not about how sore you feel after doing it.

In short, i think the study is muck and poorly thought out myself.:o

Roper

Dragan wrote: »

Personally i would doubt that. As i said, 12 of us did it and for anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months or so afterwards we felt great. A lot of the people there were trainers, physio's etc and kept a close watch on there performance, especially those who at the time were training for marathons, fights and a few for gradings if i remember correctly.

If they want to find something to blame performance on i suggest they look at team cohesion.

And dunk, not that i am aware of mate. If this were true it would be rampant in the Bodybuilding scene where's it's size/shape etc that matter.

Nonetheless, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that things like sprint times were way down after cryo. Mind you with the expense invoved in the Polish camp I doubt the IRFU were ever going to suggest it was a failure so I don't think any hard evidence will come out of that.

As regards your own experience, it's also quite subjective. How can you state that 3 months of feeling great was different to any other time you felt great, bad or indifferent? I believe it's expensive to go to that place so maybe people who go to it don't want to admit they still feel like crap afterwards?

Dragan

Roper wrote: »

As regards your own experience, it's also quite subjective. How can you state that 3 months of feeling great was different to any other time you felt great, bad or indifferent? I believe it's expensive to go to that place so maybe people who go to it don't want to admit they still feel like crap afterwards?

Simply because i don't normally feel "great", i normally feel "good" at best. When i'm training hard there is always something wrong with me, doms, or a pain or niggle somewhere from an old injury. I am pretty convinced that the Cryo did a lot of inflamation around the old injuries.

As for the expense, i don't buy that either!!! 12 of us went down and we got 3 sessions of the Cryo and a nights stay in Whites Hotel ( which is a ****ing SMASHING hotel ) for 125 euros a head. The team should head down there next time!

Not exactly breaking the bank there!

Then again, i don't know what kind of budget the guys have.:pac:

Still, would love to see their training records from before and after. Then again, the lass who was in charge seemed very suprised that all 12 of us finished the sessions and asked for more. Apparently all previous groups had drop outs so maybe the thing wasn't cold enough.:)

David Jones

We use them post training at matches with Rugby Teams. Very Useful in both specific injury recovery eg a strain or mild tear particulary if used immediately and also in general recovery. There is evidence to suggest that nutrient absorption is more efficient as the body is brought down to a resting state quicker. Anyway, they are great for bangs and bruises, strains and twists etc etc.

Here are a list of some of the alleged benefits.

http://www.wakefieldsports.com.au/files/articles/Recovery.pdf

Dragan

David Jones wrote: »

There is evidence to suggest that nutrient absorption is more efficient as the body is brought down to a resting state quicker.

Valid point, one of the biggest issues with post workout nutrition is that all the blood is drawn away from the digestive system and into the working limbs. Your digestive systems requires a solid blood flow to work effectively so getting hemeostatic quicker would definitely help imo.

Cheers for the insight Dave.

Nothingcompares

Anyone see the film wanted? How's that for recovery baths

Dragan

Nothingcompares wrote: »

Anyone see the film wanted? How's that for recovery baths

At the risk of dragging the thread off topic....they would be ****ing savage.

Bending bullets would be a nice party trick as well.