What is Cold Water Immersion (CWI)?

An athlete is placed in an ice bath with a temperature typically between 5-15 °C (41-59 °F). The goal is to reduce body temperature, which is supposed to alleviate muscle damage and inflammation. This could improve recovery and possibly exercise performance.

Pre-cooling for performance

Cold water immersion before physical activity could improve athletic performance and fatigue. But this finding isn’t consistent across all studies. The effect seems to be greater when training in the heat.

Short term vs. long-term

Cold water immersion after exercise could improve recovery by reducing fatigue, muscle soreness (DOMS), exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD), and inflammation. This could lead to improved performance recovery in the short-term, perhaps ideal for competitions.

In the long-term, cold water immersion might impair hypertrophy as well other training-related adaptations.

Preliminary evidence suggests that [Cold Water Immersion] may blunt resistance signalling pathways following a single exercise session, as well as attenuate key long-term resistance training adaptations such as strength and muscle mass. - Broatch et al., 2018

Treating Overheating

Cold water immersion can be used to treat overheating from exercise (exertional hyperthermia or exercise-induced hyperthermia).