Ice Baths Dont Help With Recovery

That is an oversimplification, most things are. The truth of the matter is, most studies done on ice baths as a means of recovery show that immediate ice doesn’t help; remove soreness, hasten muscle repair or bring muscle force production back to baselines, much faster than just heat.

In short that means that post workout ice bath isn’t doing much. I know we’ve all seen NBA players post themselves in ice baths all over their ig stories and on ESPN but there’s no scientific evidence of it being effective. No studied proving it actually decreases inflammation or anything.

So why do it? Pain. The one thing that the ice bath does is slow down your pain receptors so, it helps you feel better right after an intense workout. Feeling is generally a good measuring stick for professional athletes because, they have extremely developed neuromuscular systems and as a result can tell you when something is wrong with their bodies before it can be seen in some cases.

To get a better understanding of the role recovery in general there was another study done in 2017 using 5 different recovery methods on males. This study also showed that the only recovery method that was detrimental was active recovery. Ice Baths and Contrast Baths didn’t beat out the control group in terms of muscle soreness and strength regeneration.

So what is the best form of recovery? Sleep. A Stanford sleep study of 11 basketball players showed that when allowed to sleep extension, improved their; shot accuracy and sprint times. The sleep extension period was a bit over a month and the goal for them was about 10 hours of sleep per night as opposed to the 7-8 hours.

As a working and active adult 10 hours may be a bit much to shoot for but, the point is more sleep will help your body and mind recover better and help you perform better. Most of us aren’t beating our bodies up to the same degree that collegiate athletes are, which removes the need to sleep 10 hours but getting a solid 8 instead of trying to see gains after 5 hours of sleep nightly, will help.