Cold Therapy

Icing has been used for decades as a way to decrease the perception of local pain/swelling after activity.

However, it’s important to understand that targeted cold therapy (i.e. an ice pack) is doing very little for aiding in systemic recovery — though managing local inflammation can allow for reduced time to regain full fitness after an overloading bout.

Full-body immersion (i.e. cold plunge) does seem to have some support in the research — especially when it comes to management of hormonal markers of stress — but the ideal application and dose seem to be somewhat hard to pin down. Accordingly, it’s difficult for us to give a confident and safe recommendation that optimizes for recovery while managing the potentially serious consequences of misuse.

An additional consideration would be that cold acts as vasoconstrictor (i.e. reduces blood flow), so it is best utilized on achy joints or acute swelling to manage pain and inflammation. Putting ice on sore muscles is generally contraindicated and may actually lengthen recovery time.