The Ice Bath Craze, and the Hidden Risks Behind It

At one of the running competitions I recently took part in, there was an unusual crowd near the finish line. As I got closer, it turned out to be a long, sweaty, dust-covered queue of men and women of all ages, waiting impatiently to step into a tank filled with ice and freezing water. It was not surprising. After all, in recent years the ice bath trend has been everywhere, and social media is full of celebrities and fitness influencers trying to convince you that exposure to cold has completely changed their lives and their entire existence. But alongside the many proven benefits of the trend, there are several less positive effects, from a sports and physical standpoint, that are important to know.

"If you use ice baths at the wrong time and in the wrong way, you can completely ruin the adaptation, the training improvement effect, that you worked so hard for," explains Mike James, a physiotherapist and senior lecturer at the University of South Wales in Britain who works with elite athletes in Europe and around the world, and has become one of the most prominent critics of the trend on social media. Although in the short term ice baths help reduce fatigue after strenuous exercise because they cool the tissues and the blood, several studies in recent years have found that getting into an ice bath immediately after strength training impairs the muscle-building process, muscle hypertrophy, and can also hurt long-term strength development. The reason is that the cold reduces blood flow and nutrients to the muscles and disrupts the anabolic and cellular activity that leads to muscle growth and strengthening.

According to James, however refreshing and invigorating an ice bath may be, it is a "bad choice" for those who want to see significant and quick results from their training. He particularly warns endurance athletes, who use strength training as part of their training program to maximize their aerobic performance. So who can benefit from an ice bath immediately after intense activity? Those who need immediate relief and rapid recovery, people whose need to recover quickly is more urgent than their need to improve and progress. A good example is elite endurance athletes during a multi-day competition or an intense training camp, which require performance abilities and quick recovery every day. For them, it is recommended to take an ice bath at a temperature of 10 to 15 degrees for 8 to 15 minutes, which can be split up. James recommends waiting 4 to 6 hours between strength training and an ice bath, and on days when doing a key workout, or what is sometimes called a quality workout, it is better to skip the ice bath and find another recovery method. "The athlete must ask the question: 'Is it more important for me to feel better tomorrow, or to be stronger in 6 to 12 weeks?'"