Cold-water baths may soothe aches, risks
Taking a dip in a tub of cold water after exercising may prevent muscle soreness, but a new look at past research says little is known about its side effects or even how long to stay in the water.
In general, the researchers said there is very little quality research on the topic of so-called cryotherapy, despite the treatment’s popularity to prevent or reduce muscle soreness days after exercising.
“It’s a typical intervention in sports medicine in the elite arena and the professional arena and it gradually started to filter down,” said Chris Bleakley, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.
Bleakley and his colleagues collected existing data on 366 people from 17 studies for their report in the Cochrane Library, a publication of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research.
The researchers found that most of the studies on this topic only looked at a handful of athletes and were poorly designed. The lack of data meant they were only able to draw a significant conclusion from 14 studies that compared cold-water baths to doing nothing or just resting.
Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) describes a phenomenon of muscle pain, muscle soreness or muscle stiffness that occurs in the day or two after exercise. This muscle soreness is most frequently felt when you begin a new exercise program, change your exercise routine, or dramatically increase the duration or intensity of your exercise routine.
Although it can be alarming for new exercisers, delayed onset muscle soreness is a normal response to unusual exertion and is part of an adaptation process that leads to greater stamina and strength as the muscles recover and build hypertrophy).
This sort of muscle pain is not the same as the muscle pain or fatigue you experience during exercise. Delayed soreness is also unlike the acute, sudden and sharp pain of an injury such as a muscle strains or sprain that occurs during activity and often causes swelling or bruising. The delayed muscle soreness of DOMS is generally at its worst within the first 2 days following a new, intense activity and slowly subsides over the next few days.
In the studies, people were asked to get into a cold-water bath that was about 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit after exercising. They stayed in the bath from anywhere between five and 24 minutes.
Overall, the baths lessened the soreness the athletes experienced over the next four days between 15 percent and 20 percent, according to Bleakley.
“Muscles go through quite a bit of physical stress when we exercise,” says Rick Sharp, professor of exercise physiology at Iowa State University in Ames.
“Mild soreness just a natural outcome of any kind of physical activity,” he says. “And they’re most prevalent in beginning stages of a program.”
Exercise physiologists refer to the gradually increasing discomfort that occurs between 24 and 48 hours after activity as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and it is perfectly normal.
“Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a common result of physical activity that stresses the muscle tissue beyond what it is accustomed to,” says David O. Draper, professor and director of the graduate program in sports medicine/athletic training at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
To be more specific, says Draper, who’s also a member of the heat-responsive pain council, delayed onset muscle soreness occurs when the muscle is performing an eccentric or a lengthening contraction. Examples of this would be running downhill or the lengthening portion of a bicep curl.
“Small microscopic tears occur in the muscle,” he says.
But he told Reuters Health that it’s important for people to know that the improvement was only in soreness. It does not mean the muscle was any stronger.