Ice Baths: Can someone explain to me what they do, proper tempurature, duration and how often tehy should be used

mitel wrote:

i just want to know what a toxin is. there are so many claims of things that flush these supposed evil toxins out of the body yet nobody can state what a toxin is.

A toxin (Greek: τοξικόν, toxikon, lit. (poison) for use on arrows) is a poisonous substance produced by living cells or organisms[1] that is active at very low concentrations.

Lactate threshold (LIP or Lactate Inflection Point)

The lactate threshold (LT) is the exercise intensity at which lactic acid starts to accumulate in the blood stream. This happens when it is produced faster than it can be removed (metabolized). This point is sometimes referred to as the anaerobic threshold (AT), or the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA). When exercising below the LT intensity any lactate produced by the muscles is removed by the body without it building up.

So the anaerobic toxins accumulate after the LT has been passed :)

thanks to both. it sounds like these toxins really exist but only when you've gotten to LT?

But, according to another post in this thread, the anerobic toxins that accumulate after LT has been passed actually are cleared after 30 mins or so of rest.

If this is true, wouldn't this mean that the claim that you should drink alot of water after a massage to 'flush the toxins' that the massage has pushed out of the muscles is really garbage?

"1. Drink Water- Drinking water helps to replace fluids lost during a massage session and to flush out toxins that are released from the tissues into the blood. This helps to delude toxins as well as to speed up the elimination of toxins. Drinking water after a massage also helps to avoid dehydration, dizziness, and possible nausea.

and

2. * Try This Bath Formula- This Bath Formula helps to draw toxins out of the body through the skin (the largest organ of the body). This helps the body eliminate toxins much faster by causing the toxins to be released through the trillions and trillions of pores in the skin. The Bath Formula is very highly recommended for everyone who has a deep therapeutic massage session and works best when taken right before bedtime the same day after the massage session. This Bath Formula will help to speed the elimination of toxins, speed recovery and healing, help reduce soreness and prevent soreness, and will promote restful sleep. The Bath Formula is as follows:

4 cups of "Apple Cider Vinegar"

&

1 pound of "Sea Salts / or Mineral Salts"

(Optional additional ingredients to help reduce inflammation or swelling:

Add also 40 drops of Ginger essential oils / or 5-6 bags of Ginger tea to the bath water.

'You may also drink a cup of some 'Ginger Tea' while your soaking in the tub because

it works internally as well and this will help speed the effectiveness.')"

also

"I always get suspicious if things are just called "toxins". What kind of toxins?? My university toxiclogy professor used to emphasize that EVERYTHING is toxic, it just depends on how much of it you have in your body.

Did you know that arsenic is actually naturally present in the human body? And that's famous for being toxic! It's just not toxic at small amounts. My point: "toxins" can be absolutely ANYTHING.

To be honest, keeping hydrated at all times should make you feel better. Drinking lots of water (not to the point of renal failure, obviously) is always a great idea.

posted by wackybrit at 5:52 PM on August 13, 2005 "

and finally

Drinking water after a massage is often recommended by massage therapists and other health care practitioners, for a variety of reasons. In fact, drinking water in general is a good idea, as the body benefits from proper hydration, and consuming water will help the kidneys and other organs process the various substances which move through the human body on a regular basis. Drinking water before a massage is also highly recommended, as it will make it easier for the massage therapist to perform deep work by hydrating the muscles so that they are easier to manipulate.

There are primary reasons for people to drink water after a massage. The first has to do with substances released by the muscles as the massage therapist manipulates them, and the second has to do with ensuring that the muscles of the body are properly hydrated.

In the case of the first reason, water after a massage helps the body flush out any accumulated materials in the muscles which were released during the massage. Especially in the case of deep tissue massage, massage stimulates circulation in the body while expressing water, salt, and other minerals from the muscles, and circulation is designed to carry away waste materials generated by cells. By providing the body with plenty of water, massage clients can help sweep away these waste materials; otherwise, they might build up, causing muscle aches and soreness after a massage.

In the case of lymphatic massage, drinking water after a massage is especially important, as the stimulation of the lymphatic circulation system can generate a large release of wastes in the body. If one thinks of the lymph system as the sewer pipes of the body, collecting unwanted waste material and carrying it away for disposal, lymphatic massage is like a drain cleaner, so water helps flush the drain, in a sense.

Most importantly, people should drink water after a massage because massage can be dehydrating. The manipulation of the muscles depletes them of water, and also moves the fluid in the interstitial spaces between the muscles around. By drinking water, people can rehydrate their muscles, reducing the potential for pain and soreness in the days following a massage. For the same reason, people drink water after exercise and other forms of exertion, because when the muscles are worked, they lose water and electrolytes.

Many people also like to drink a glass of water after a massage because it helps bring them back down to earth. After a massage, people can feel a bit spacey and disoriented; having a glass of water while sitting on the massage table can help bring the body and mind back to the present, and it gives the client time to slowly return to the real world.

wellnow wrote:

It's obvious to some of us that there is a lot of pseudo-science around the subject of ice baths, but consider what I am saying.

Cold water immersion for a few minutes will rapidly reduce your core temperature, which can considerably reduce recovery time.

What it will NOT do is prevent sore legs.

Agreed. Sore legs are going to happen if you train hard. It does rapidly reduce your core temp. Therefore, when you are in the bath the blood is rushing out of your legs to keep your core as warm as possible. Then when you get out of the bath the legs fill back up with blood rich in oxygen and damaged cells can then repair.

Lets put it this way, a quick google search found that the following people take ice baths regularly in their training

Paula Radcliffe

Michael Phelps

Usain Bolt

Bernard Legat

Need there more be said?? I would follow in the footsteps of these athletes rather than rely on the advice of letsrun posters. Take an ice bath. End thread.

Has anyone actually looked up what is out there on pubmed? I did a quick lit search (ice bath recovery exercise) and came up with two studies.

Cold water recovery reduces anaerobic performance. Crowe MJ, O'Connor D, Rudd D.

Effect of cryotherapy on muscle soreness and strength following eccentric exercise.

It seems like everyone is just speculating without citing anything. Sadly today I don't have time to read/analyze these (yet surprisingly i do have time to look at letsrun)

This is how, due to extrem cold, the body respond to restore the body temp.in that sence more blood get to flow in the muscles increasing the metabolic reaction, thus more oxygen flows in the muscles removing lactic acid which causes that had accumulated.

This thread is textbook placebo effect. You expect an unrelated event, in this case an ice bath, to relieve your pain and help you feel better the next day, and so it does. Never mind that you would have felt the same without taking the ice bath, of course.I don't remember the last time I was really sore from a workout. I guarantee I do workouts just as hard as anyone else, but I never ice bathe and somehow seem to get along just fine. But by all means, keep up with your sugar pills.

So by your logic we should never have to take any medicine, certainly don’t need to because the human body heals as quick as possible. I am sure after you reread your post you will recognize how foolish it is. Ice, aspirin, and many other interventions slow and reduce inflammation and speed recovery. It’s a fact it is not something that is debatable. Now all the particular molecular signaling events etc are still being teased out but there is not debate, ice works.

We don't absolutely need to take most of the medicine we do take. Painkillers are great mentally, of course, but they don't speed up recovery. Unless there's something wrong with your body you shouldn't have to take drugs. I'm not saying modern medicine isn't great, because it is. But when your body is working correctly medicine will hurt you if anything.

So then its a pretty interesting that all the top athletes take ice baths... guess they just have nothing better to do with their time. I often think "shall we go to the movies?, spend time with my family?, or take an ice bath?" Can anyone explain why the fastest marathoner of all time (Paula), one of the greatest middle distance runners (Lagat), and the fastest human being ever in the water (Phelps) ALL TAKE ICE BATHS!!!???

SSppeelliinngg wrote:

Lets put it this way, a quick google search found that the following people take ice baths regularly in their training

Paula Radcliffe

Michael Phelps

Usain Bolt

Bernard Legat

Need there more be said??

That some athletes subscribe to fads and superstition is nothing new. The fact is, there is no known physiological response that justifies ice baths.

Icing for a traumatic injury, on the other hand, is a well-known and proven method for mitigating the effects of swelling and pain. The physiology is straightforward; icing reduces inflammation and swelling in the interstitial spaces due to edema and/or blood accumulation . All injuries and all tissue damage can only heal with adequate blood supply to the affected area. It’s only after this swelling is reduced can the injured area receive an adequate blood supply for healing. Applying heat to an affected area dilates blood vessels and brings that much needed flow of blood.

As far as recovery from athletic training goes, you need more blood to the muscles, not less. Since training for running doesn’t come to the level of traumatic injury there’s no reason physiological reason to apply cold. You would only be delaying the recovery process.

If you are a football player, it probably wouldn't hurt to sit in an ice bath every day. A runner, no.

Citations from Guyton

Ice baths get chilly review

RICE vs MEAT

Kiongo wrote:

This is how, due to extrem cold, the body respond to restore the body temp.in that sence more blood get to flow in the muscles increasing the metabolic reaction, thus more oxygen flows in the muscles removing lactic acid which causes that had accumulated.

Please cite which physiology book that appears in? Guyton? Ganong?

Captain Obvious Here.... wrote:

So then its a pretty interesting that all the top athletes take ice baths...

No it's not interesting.

Yes you shouldn't be taking medication if you don't need it. Why would you.

Pain killers work. It is not just mental there are these things called receptors and some are specific for pain and when activated by a noxious stimulus you get the sensation of pain. And guess what some of the pain killers do. Yes you guessed it they block either the receptors or the down stream signaling of the receptor. Note pain receptors are all over the body they are not localized to the brain.

How would you quantify "recovery" what exactly do you think the inflammatory response is? Some drugs can work on a combinations of symtoms including pain and inflammation and they reduce the symptoms of the injury, Reduced swelling, depending on the injury will allow a normal range of motion of a joint which in my mind is speeding recovery.

I see people like you on this board write, "inflammation is the bodies way of healing itself why disrupt that" and I am certain you have no idea what goes on during inflammation nor do you know why it is either good or bad. Please prove me wrong.

And how exactly will the medicine hurt you if your body is working correctly. Please I would like to hear this, spare no detail. Are the side effects of the drug more common when you are healthy? Or is it the kinetics of the the drug are theyslowed when you are healthy and thererfore are in your body longer? And then they become toxic. If you body is working properly i.e. the kidney and liver in particular many drugs pose no serious side effect if taken when you are healthy. Again why take themn when you are healhty you shouldn't but saying the the drugs will hurt you if you are healthy and only help you when you are sick I don't undestand that. teh side effect will likely be present, sick or healthy the side effects are not worse if you are healthy.

I have not read Guyton but there are many other physiology textbooks out there try Boron and Boulpaep it's a little more up to date. Guyton is primarily used in undergraduate textbooks.

Now I don't think Kingo necessarily knows this but upon exposure to prolonged extreme cold the blood flow (BF) response occurs in three phases.

Phase 1 very early first few seconds, may be a minute at the most there is an increase in blood flow but it is primarily an increase in BF to the skin. You can see this by putting your hand in ice water. There are some differences in how skin BF and muscle BF are regulated different stimuli etc.

Phase 2 is the decrease in blood flow and this can be prolonged. This is the one that stopps swelling etc.

Phase 3 is the interesting one it turns out that BF to the limb will increase every 15 minutes, this is an increase above the very low flow that results from phase 2, and then will return back to the low flow level of phase 2.

All of these phases are controlled by the hypothalamus and the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. The exact mechanism for phase 3, I have no idea what it is. It's kinda cool though, as it helps preserve tissue.

They guy doing the research is out of the Natick, MA USARIEM labs. I don't remember his name but thay have a very impressive environmental chamber there and the army folks get put through some very crazy studies ones that no University human subjects review board would ever allow.

noname wrote:

I have not read Guyton but there are many other physiology textbooks out there try Boron and Boulpaep it's a little more up to date. Guyton is primarily used in undergraduate textbooks.

Please sit down, fool. Guyton is meant for and used by medical students. It is way too comprehensive for undergrads, except pre-medicine majors.

I wasn't saying that pain killers are all mental, but they certainly aren't a necessity to recovery even though they relieve pain.

I am well aware of the inflammation response and the importance of icing for traumatic injuries. However, running shouldn't be inducing traumatic injuries. If it is you're doing something wrong.

Please tell me a reason that icing would prevent stress fractures or any tendon injury, keeping in mind that cold tends to make tendons more prone to rupture.

Actually I wouldn't put med students above undergrads. At least not most programs. But I was thinking of mentioning that it is used to teach med students as well.

Guyton is hardly complicated.I haven't read it completely but I have looked at it many many times and know enough about it to know it's not worth my time. Don't get me wrong Guyton himself is brilliant. What he contributed to the field of Physiology in particular cardiovascular physiology is fantastic.

You have read it? And you have compared it to other text books. By the way the reason they use it for med school is becuase it is NOT complicated and comprehensive. But for your brain I am sure it is plenty.

I have taught Physiology to both groups (undergrads and med students) and there is not much of a difference. Well may be there is med students like to be spoon fed, they are intellectually lazy and just want to know what is on the exam. Ask anyone who has taught med students. Almost across the board, even at the good schools.

You my friend should have a seat.

noname wrote:

I have taught Physiology to both groups (undergrads and med students) and there is not much of a difference. Well may be there is med students like to be spoon fed, they are intellectually lazy and just want to know what is on the exam. Ask anyone who has taught med students. Almost across the board, even at the good schools.

Sure.

RICE vs MEAT

http://www.caringmedical.com/symptoms/meatvsrice.asp

From my own experience straining my quad, yet still making it to my goal marathon start- I will attest to the Movement Excercise Analgesics and Therapy approach.

Even now I am advancing through another injury by working through it- (active rest), and can feel myself getting stronger again.

And as far as I know, the GBTC guys elevated their legs after long runs- and did other kinds of "active" recovery.