Just the thought of climbing into a tub of ice makes me shudder. How can anyone do it?
But then…
I remember a Christmas in Austria when my friend took me to a small farm that was also an inn. They had a sauna in a separate building and my friend and I luxuriated in it – until he had us run outside in our birthday suits to the icy cold night.
I never felt the cold.
New research found fewer signs of muscle growth in legs treated with ice baths than in legs recovering at room temperature. Published in the Journal of Physiology, the study adds to other, more long-term work suggesting that ice baths post-workout might slow down muscle building, says study co-author Cas Fuchs, a doctoral researcher in the department of human biology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Some research still shows that hopping into cold water after a workout soothes sore muscles. Or, at least, it offers a placebo effect that keeps athletes and their coaches returning to the tub. But some newer evidence indicates that ice baths also keep people from building more muscle after a workout, particularly when it comes to resistance training, Fuchs says.
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