Negative impact from ice bathing?

Yes, this has been known for a while now. Use of ice baths should be restricted to recovery purposes only, when adaptations are not needed (i.e., at the last track meet of a season when an athlete is doing more than 1 race).

Shrinkage!

Thanks a lot for the share

Before people just read the headline and decide to cut out ice baths completely, let me try to sum up what the article said:

- Ice baths are good for recovery, however they can be inhibit natural recovery and healing processes (i.e. inflammation is necessary for proper recovery).

- With this in mind, don't do an ice bath when not NEEDED for recovery.

- This includes: during the week in racing/track season, in between hard sessions to recover for the next workout; during championship meets in between races/heats.

- This does NOT include: during base phase; at the end of the week of a training phase

Wouldn't it be better to refrain from ice bathing after a hard workout in order to get maximum adaptation?

mrtalent wrote:

Wouldn't it be better to refrain from ice bathing after a hard workout in order to get maximum adaptation?

I think this is true but I also think that if you are trying to recover quickly from a workout for an important race, it may be more beneficial to miss out on part of the adaptation in order to get to the line recovered.

find out what its about wrote:

mrtalent wrote:

Wouldn't it be better to refrain from ice bathing after a hard workout in order to get maximum adaptation?

I think this is true but I also think that if you are trying to recover quickly from a workout for an important race, it may be more beneficial to miss out on part of the adaptation in order to get to the line recovered.

Exactly. Lose the battle to win the war.

Oh yeah it is definitely beneficial to do ice bathing in order to get recovered for a race, but it was mentioned that it should be done in between hard workouts in order to be ready for the next session. In my opinion, if you are given enough recovery time after the hard sessions, you would get more benefit and adaptation by not ice bathing between sessions?

mrtalent wrote:

Oh yeah it is definitely beneficial to do ice bathing in order to get recovered for a race, but it was mentioned that it should be done in between hard workouts in order to be ready for the next session. In my opinion, if you are given enough recovery time after the hard sessions, you would get more benefit and adaptation by not ice bathing between sessions?

I would say yes, given that you have recovered enough from the first session to perform adequately in the second session.

If you hadn't recovered enough to perform at a level required to get maximum benefit, it may be more beneficial to take the ice bath, reducing the benefit from the 1st workout but increasing the benefit from the 2nd. However, I could also see it going the other way, in which the lessened adaptations from the 1st session would be more detrimental than being recovered for the 2nd session. In this situation you would probably need to experiment some and see which works best for you

Unless the athlete is in a big hurry for some reason (and they shouldn't be if their training was properly planned), the next session should just be postponed until the athlete feels ready to go again. If it absolutely cannot wait, it might be worthwhile to just modify the 2nd session to be easier. But, again, if it's can't wait, the issue is a lack of planning and trying to gain fitness too quickly.