Feb. 14, 2012 … According to a new review, it is better than doing nothing and equal to other remedies such as compression stockings or stretching.
Ice baths are favored by some elite athletes and have become a habit of other exercisers as well.
“We only found an effect in favor of cold water immersion when it was compared to doing nothing – that is, passive rest after exercise,” says Chris Bleakley, PhD, a researcher at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland.
The ice bath reduced muscle soreness by about 20%, he says.
“There were no differences when cold water immersion was compared to other popular recovery interventions,” he says. So the best active treatment is still unclear, he tells WebMD.
The review is published in The Cochrane Library. …
… Experts are not sure how an ice bath works. “A number of studies used blood samples to examine the effect of immersion on various biomarkers of inflammation and muscle damage,” Bleakley says.
However, he says, no studies found an effect on the inflammation response. The researchers did find a reduction in pain, and that can follow inflammation and muscle damage.
The ''placebo" effect – a measurable effect that isn’t due to the treatment – may be at work, Bleakley says.
“My advice to athletes is to find the strategy that they feel works best for them,” he says. This could include a combination of water recovery, compression, stretching, and other methods, he says. …
… Many other treatments can help reduce muscle soreness, Sforzo says. Massage, for instance, ''is a lot more fun than doing ice water immersion," he says.