[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Two things.
Firstly that study uses untrained individuals, not athletes.
Secondly, 3 x 1 minutes is not a protocol I have ever heard of for ecceting inflammation or pain reduction. Standard advice for cryotherapy is 10 minutes minimum.
Bushy[/quote]
I think they chose untrained to elicit a high amount of DOMS.
[quote]Boffin wrote:
<<<The bottom line:
Getting into a tub of testicle-shrinking ice-cold water is probably unnecessary for most of us in terms of preventing of treating DOMS. It’s probably more fun if there’s vodka and a sauna involved though (but they didn’t study that). [/quote]
Yes, good review of the study. Except that I don’t understand their most basic choice: 3 X 1 minute in the ice baths.
Is that the normal protocol athletes follow?
If an ice bath is going to have an anti-inflammatory effect, seems it would need to be much longer than 3 total minutes.
However, it’s certainly possible that elite athletes commonly do things that don’t help them much. They do all kinds of superstitious things, for example. And the placebo effect is always large.
That’s why Boffin posted this:
[quote]Boffin wrote:
I note from the details above that the protocol used doesn’t seem to fit with “accepted” practice. My belief was that usually: either you sit in an ice bath for as long as you can stand or you alternate hot & cold.
Perhaps the researchers investigated something not not many people are using?[/quote]
My son was a fullback in high school (now a running back), and he regulary took ice baths directly after a football games. His team (ranked #1 in the nation last year his senior year) ran an offense based on pounding the ball via the ground so he took on some punishment.
We learned this from a college coach from UCLA who also coached with the rams and eagles and used this technique for his professional players as well.
The ice baths helped his recovery so much he wasnt sore at all the next morning when he woke up. But the couple of times he didnt ice bath he could hardly get out of bed, he certainly wasnt able to flush with his team before film post game day.
He is still taking ice baths after heavy hitting days. I never thought about pplying this to heavy weight workouts. He usually wont lift the day before a game becuase of soreness, but the ice bath would probaly cure any soreness.
So, how long are the ice baths?
Not long, about as long as he could stand it which was about 3-5 minutes. The time in the ice bath was usually relative to when his girlfriend or buddies where going to be over to meet up with him to go out to get something to eat.
The ice part might be a misnomer becuase we added ice to cold water, about a 10 lb bag, and then let it sit for a minute or two before he jumped into the tub.