Hot or cold shower?

patjunfa

I read a wee bit about marathon running. It said after such excersize, have a cold bath, it constricts the blood vessels, returning the blood to the heart. Also says you'd incurr lots of micro tears, so the cold helps this, whereas heat would incororage blood into muscles, and so create more damage.
What about normal\hard martial arts trainin? Similar to above follow, or nice hot shower to relax the muscles?

paddyc

aye cold showers are the way to go... or else warmish showers and turn it cold for the last 1 min to close all the pores, stops u getting the cold as well..

paddy

paul moran

Yep, Gotta agree with Paddy,

Cold shower after strenuous excercise. We spar for 1.5hrs every Monday and I'm straight under the cold shower afterwards. The shower is supposed to be hot but takes 5 minutes to heat up!?!? I cool down while it's cold then as it heats up get the old Radox out. This was also be the approach when I would have multiple fights in a day/weekend (add power naps as well).

I have another 2 hours training after the sparring so I need to heat the muscles up again so I don't get cramp.

Generally the routine should be the same as the 1st two steps of the RICE regime after a fight etc. Rest and ice!

Paul

PJG

Yeah alternate cold – hot, cold – hot. That’s the way to go.

Currently a lot of top international rugby teams have facilities where the players can get into ice baths and then hot baths several times and reports are players are good to train the next day.

It helps draw out lactic acid and real tears and bruising.

Its also very good for the immune system as its stimulates the lymphatic system (don’t ask).

Ballisong

After training have a shower alternating between cold, hot, cold, hot for 3 minutes under each. The cold water eliminates any heat build up after training, it reduces blood flow to the injured muscle fibres allowing them to recuperate and it reduces the action of stress hormones with further reduces the recovery. The hot water then dilates your veins, speeding away waste materials quicker than your body normaly would. Hope this helps

patjunfa

Ta for the replys, makes sense

Clive

Arr, alternate between hot and cold but always start and end with cold. I've found it works great, and I know that a lot of international level athletes (eg at the UCD high performance centre) use ice baths and hot showers.

Millionaire

hi lads

I am not trying to to be smart or rubbish what any of the lads have said on here...

but if you are not competing at a serious level... or a pro athlete


does it really matter???

for example...I kickboxed for years etc...but the only time I wrapped myhands back then was going into the ring..ok me a wee bit stubborn

but I used to marvel at the lads traininng...who if they got a slightly hard Jab on the nose and then would whinge about being hit ....they spend about 30 mins wrapping hands so perfrect!!!!

Baldie

How can anyone stay under a cold shower for 3 minutes? 3 seconds and I'd have enough!!!

Clive

Millionaire wrote:

but if you are not competing at a serious level... or a pro athlete
does it really matter???

Well it does make it easier to get out of bed for work the next morning, and you don't make as many olf man sounds getting up from your desk!

pma-ire

Clive wrote:

Well it does make it easier to get out of bed for work the next morning, and you don't make as many olf man sounds getting up from your desk!

Thats all part of the fun :cool:

But anything that will flush out the lactic acid has to be good for you!