Marketing Scoops: Are Ice Baths Good For You?

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Soothing sore muscles. Improving mood and sleep. Accelerating weight loss. Vagus nerve stimulation. Wellness enthusiasts, athletes, and maybe even your gym buddy are regularly praising ice baths for a wide range of benefits. And today’s fans of cryotherapy the use of cold for therapeutic purposes aren’t on to anything new. Ancient Egyptians and Hippocrates all have touted the healing benefits of cold water……..Continue reading….

By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

Source: Popular Science

Critics:

Some athletes use a technique known as contrast water therapy or contrast bath therapy, in which cold water and warmer water are alternated. One method of doing this was to have two tubs––one cold (10–15 degrees Celsius) and another hot (37–40 degrees Celsius)––and to do one minute in the cold tub followed by two minutes in a hot tub, and to repeat this procedure three times.

The temperature can vary, but is usually in the range of 50–59 degrees Fahrenheit or between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius. Some athletes wear booties to keep their toes warm or rubberized coverings around their midsection while immersed. Some drink a warm beverage such as tea. One report suggested that “ten minutes immersed in 15 degree Celsius water” was sufficient. Accounts vary about how long to be immersed and how often to do them.

One adviser suggested that an athlete should take ten two-minute ice bath treatments over a two-week period. One account suggested immersion times should be between ten and twenty minutes. Another suggested that immersion run from five to ten minutes, and sometimes to twenty minutes. There were no sources advocating being immersed for longer than twenty minutes.

Several sources suggest that cold baths (60–75 °F, 16–24 °C) were preferable to ice baths. Physiotherapist Tony Wilson of the University of Southampton said that extremely cold temperatures were unnecessary and a “cold bath” would be just as effective as an ice bath. Another agreed that a mere cold bath is preferable to ice baths which are “unnecessary.” A third report suggested that cool water (60–75 °F, 16–24 °C) was just as good as water at a lower temperature (54–60 °F, 12–16 °C) and that eight to ten minutes should be sufficient time, and warned against exceeding ten minutes.

After exercise, there is some evidence that taking an ice bath may reduce delayed onset muscle soreness and perceptions of fatigue, but no good evidence of any other benefit. A 2024 meta-analysis of controlled trials concluded that cold water immersion immediately following resistance training may blunt the ensuing muscle hypertrophy, although the authors cautioned that their conclusion was uncertain due to the relatively fair to poor quality of the underlying studies.

There is agreement in the medical and scientific communities that ice baths can pose serious risks to health. Risks include hypothermia, shock and the possibility of sudden cardiac death. Ice baths, an activity within the practice of cryotherapy, has been predominately utilised for multiple decades for therapeutic purposes, typically for exercise recovery for athletes, and more recently for perceived mental health benefits, such as the alleviation of symptoms of mental health problems such as depression.

Cryotherapy can be tracked “as far back as the Egyptians in 3000 BCE” as a wound treatment .Cryotherapy can be dated back to ancient Greece, its first mention in an ancient Egyptian medical text Edwin Smith Papyrus that is believed to date to around 3500 BCE, and furthermore through Hippocrates’s theory of the four humours. Although, when applying a historical perspective,cold-water immersion was used first as a form of socialisation and relaxation, before its physiological and psychological benefits were noted.

The main medical treatments that Ancient Greeks employed the use of cold-water immersion for were fever, as the cold was thought to counteract the body’s heat, and for pain relief. The use of cold-water immersion for medical treatments for physiological symptoms continued until the late 1950s. In fact, it was not utilised for post-exercise recovery until the 1960s, by D H Clarke. However, the use of cold-water immersion for post-exercise recovery and treatment is by far the most popular and well-known use of the technique, despite being the most recent.

There are indications that ice baths may be gaining popularity with groups outside sports, such as dance. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that some Radio City Rockettes, a precision dance company performing in New York City, use ice baths after a long day of performing as a way to “unwind” and cope with “aches and pains.” One report suggested that entertainer Madonna used ice baths after her performances. And there are indications that use of ice baths is spreading to amateur sports, such as high school football.

Explorer and athlete Fiann Paul is known for using ice baths as part of his training routine. Ice baths are a part of a broader phenomenon known as cryotherapy—the Greek word cryo (κρυο) means cold—which describes a variety of treatments when cold temperatures are used therapeutically. Cryotherapy includes procedures where a person is placed in a room with “cold, dry air at temperatures as low as −135 °C” for short periods of time.

It has been used in hospitals in Poland as well as a center in London to treat not only muscular ailments, but psychological problems such as depression. Basketball player Manny Harris reportedly used a Cryon-X machine featuring extreme low temperatures around minus 166 degrees Fahrenheit, but used it with wet socks resulting in a serious freezer burn.

Occasionally ice baths have been an ill-advised treatment of fever in young children, but that doctors were counseled not to use this technique because of the risk of hypothermia. Ice baths have been suggested as a way to prevent muscle soreness after shoveling snow. In addition, there have been instances of ice bathing as an extreme bodily test by persons vying for an endurance record, such as Dutch Iceman Wim Hof, and Chinese record-holders Chen Kecai and Jin Songhao.

According to reports, doctors and scientists are studying how these people can spend an hour and a half submerged in an ice bath, and survive. Ice baths began to become extremely popular after being discussed extensively by Joe Rogan and his universe of scientist and comedians such as Dr. Andrew Huberman (Stanford) and Aubury Marcus (Onnit).

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Post-exercise cold water immersion attenuates acute anabolic signalling and long-term adaptations in muscle to strength training”.

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Research Is Mixed on Whether Cryotherapy Helps After Exercise”.

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