Cold Water On Muscles

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L-T

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Has anyone heard the saying that if you have a cold shower after your daily workout that your muscles will recover and help your muscles build...And some people say it helps your muscles from bleeding...? I have been looking around for answers to find out whether its true or not, But i only found a few articles saying a few things about it with no answers.

So Has anyone had experience with doing this? If so does it work and do your muscles feel more relieved then usual?

Just wondering if anyone knows anything about it.

Cheers! :action:
 
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I'm not sure about this one, however, nor have I heard anything about it. I know many athletes will ice their muscles after games or practice, but this is something they do to decrease swelling of the joints.

What I do know is that any time your body is brought in a cold environment, blood flow will decrease as your HR will slow, and your blood vessels will constrict. To my way of thinking, this lack of blood to the muscles will decrease the amount of nutrients needed for recovery and growth.

any other thoughts, anyone?? I'd love to be told that I'm wrong.
 
We do ice baths after training sometimes. It really helps with recovery. Since muscles do not bleed, that is not something to worry about.

I know there are a few pro football teams who have a pool of ice water about a foot deep or so. After practice the players take their shoes off and walk through the water. They say it really aids in the recovery process.

There are also a lot of people who advocate ice, ice baths, and cold showers over heat, hot tubs, and hot showers for recovering from workouts.

I can say that when I do the ice bath / cold shower it does seem to aid my recovery. Though I do not do it that often because the cold therapy is not very comfertable. :11doh:
 
fair enough, thanks Goergen. This was nothing I ever did with athletes after training. Usually only after they practiced or had issues with their knees or shoulders that required them to ice down after training...from a preventative/rehab standpoint, not necessarily recovering/growing muscle tissue.
 
Yes. Ice baths are standard procedure for most athletes here. I know a girl on the speedskating team, and she has them all the time.

This is what they allegedly do:


But they might not be so good according to this:


My physiotherapist definitely believes in them (she will have an ice bath after a tough workout or a really cold shower) and my BF who is a sports physiotherapist also swears by them.

But some people really don't like them very much, mostly because they freeze your sensitive parts up and that's extremely unpleasant. Your whole body really hurts for the first 3-5 minutes. But after that initial pain, you're pretty good to go for the next 20-25 minutes.

I've had them, and although they aren't the most pleasant sensation on the planet, your body won't hurt the next day ... guaranteed.
 
Then don't even bother.

They work for some people. But they might not be for everybody.

Given the choice, I'd almost rather be sore the next day anyway ;)
 
Well, based on my studies (I'm a massage therapist) Ice treatments or also called cryotherapy. Ice is a natural analgesic and a vasoconstriction agent. I haven't study the reason why athletes use cold showers or get themselves in a tub with water and ice, but knowing what cold does to the body, I think it is used to alleviate the muscular pain, reduces swelling and it helps with the recovery time.
Since cold causes vasoconstriction all the nutrients that the muscle cells needs, specially after a workout, when is where all the proteins are needed to rebuild all the macrotearings of the muscle fibers, will be limited.
Since the muscles will have a high temperature do to the workout, a cold shower will definitely refresh them and will lower your body temperature, but in my opinion that will be it.

If there is any reason beyond that, I really don't know.
 
I was just thinking about something.
Say you where working out for awhile and got quite hot and your still pumped and everything. Then say 10 minutes later? You go have a COLD shower. Would that be a problem to your body?

From going from such a high temperature into very cold water changing your body temp fast?
 
L-T said:
I was just thinking about something.
Say you where working out for awhile and got quite hot and your still pumped and everything. Then say 10 minutes later? You go have a COLD shower. Would that be a problem to your body?

From going from such a high temperature into very cold water changing your body temp fast?
Click to expand...

I don't know when it comes about workouts if is bad or good. I do know there is a therapy technique called "contrast" where the client goes from cold to hot back to cold, and so on. What this does is that creates a pumping. Cold vasoconstrict, hot vasodilates, so the constriction and dilatation of the veins and arteries creates a blood pumping that helps to clean the system among other things.
 
L-T said:
I was just thinking about something.
Say you where working out for awhile and got quite hot and your still pumped and everything. Then say 10 minutes later? You go have a COLD shower. Would that be a problem to your body?

From going from such a high temperature into very cold water changing your body temp fast?
Click to expand...

Iti may be detrimental to your health if you have a cardiovascular issue or very low blood pressure.

I can't go into hot tubs because I have low blood pressure. Moreover, my blood glucose levels drop dramatically when I get out, so I get a double whammy: lack of blood to the brain, and really low blood glucose. I usually pass out.

I'm not much for sharing dead skin cells and high bacteria levels with my friends anyway :D
 
Soulkeeper said:
Well, based on my studies (I'm a massage therapist) Ice treatments or also called cryotherapy. Ice is a natural analgesic and a vasoconstriction agent. I haven't study the reason why athletes use cold showers or get themselves in a tub with water and ice, but knowing what cold does to the body, I think it is used to alleviate the muscular pain, reduces swelling and it helps with the recovery time.
Since cold causes vasoconstriction all the nutrients that the muscle cells needs, specially after a workout, when is where all the proteins are needed to rebuild all the macrotearings of the muscle fibers, will be limited.
Since the muscles will have a high temperature do to the workout, a cold shower will definitely refresh them and will lower your body temperature, but in my opinion that will be it.

If there is any reason beyond that, I really don't know.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Soulkeeper

That was the point I was also trying to make as it's used more for recovery (reduced pain, swelling), and not so much for the building of muscles as was originally asked by the OP.
 
but do you want to constrict blood vessels after training? don't you want your muscles to get as much nutrient as possible?

I never heard that the body doesn't start the recovery process until it returns to normal temperature.. anyone got anything on that?

What about alternating cold and hot showers, I've heard about that. But those wouldn't exactly help with getting body temp down, since you also use hot water.. but I dunno.
 
Good thinking, Karky. Now that you've planted the seed, I have to find out.

I'm such a pathetic information hound ...
 
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FunctionalTrain said:
no such thing!! You can better yourself with knowledge... just look at Karky!:cool3:
Click to expand...

I just ask a lot of intelligently sounding questions.. I don't really know anything :p

It's like this:
So you say that you are here, do you? Well how do you know? Can you prove it?

see, sounds intelligent, but it isnt :p
 
Karky said:
I just ask a lot of intelligently sounding questions.. I don't really know anything :p

It's like this:
So you say that you are here, do you? Well how do you know? Can you prove it?

see, sounds intelligent, but it isnt :p
Click to expand...

Way to intelligent..
Maybe one day i can be like this?
:beerchug:
 
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