Written by Garett Reid | NSCA, CSCS, CISSN, M.S.E.S.S
Fact checked by Tyler DiGiovanni, BSBM
FACT CHECKED
If there's one thing in this world you could do to prevent cancer, increase testosterone, improve sleep, make you run faster, jump higher, bench more, squat more, improve skin quality, and just about anything else; it's the ice bath!
Obviously, we're being a bit facetious, but if you hang out on social media at all, you have probably noticed a distinct increase in content promoting the infamous ice bath. While ice baths have "been a thing" for some time, their popularity has really taken off lately.
Further, the ones promoting their use are usually popular influencers who are accomplished and have great physiques or they're elite athletes; this makes it very easy to determine them as beneficial.
Well, we hate to burst your bubble, but ice baths aren't all they're cracked out to be. This is especially true for one group of people: anyone wanting muscle growth or strength gains.
Ice Baths For Recovery, NOT Muscle Growth
The problem isn't so much that ice baths "aren't effective"; they're just not effective for everything. For example, a recent meta analysis showed that ice baths and cold water immersion are, in fact, effective at reducing muscle soreness and accelerating fatigue recovery in athletes.¹ Theoretically, this would be beneficial for athletes who are playing multiple games in a week or having strenuous training daily.
So, if ice baths improve recovery in a relatively short amount of time, wouldn't that be a good thing for muscle growth?
This makes sense as this is the cycle of getting bigger; you stress a muscle at the gym, go home to eat and recover, and the muscle repairs itself while growing a little bigger and stronger. You then go and repeat the process.
In fact, you've probably even heard of the phrase, "You can only train as fast as you can recover." As such, most people would assume that if a person can recover faster, they will have better adaptations.
Except there's a problem.
While recovery and muscle growth are related, they're not the same thing, yet people will often conflate "recovery" with "muscle growth."
Why Ice Baths May Affect Your Muscle Gains
One of the mechanisms by which ice baths improve recovery is by decreasing inflammation. As a result, things like DOMS can be attenuated, and a person can regain full function faster. However, when we're talking about muscle growth and the anabolic process, inflammation plays a very important role! In fact, the inflammation that occurs can actually trigger the entire muscle-building process!
So when you jump into the ice bath and stop this inflammation, it's as if you're taking out the firing pin of a gun!
Other mechanical explanations include the decrease in blood flow. Not only does this deny fresh oxygen, but it also mitigates the distribution of essential nutrients!
For example, some studies have shown that ice baths performed 20 minutes after a lower body training session reduced muscle protein synthesis rates for up to 5 hours!²
Other detrimental effects include the mitigation of transcriptional factors involved in ribosome biogenesis and lower satellite cell activity. These alterations have been shown to persist for up to 48 hours after ice baths, suggesting a much longer deleterious effect!
A little confused? Think of it as reducing the activity of special proteins that help make ribosomes, which are like tiny factories in cells that make proteins, and decreasing the activity of special cells that help muscles repair and grow.
All this to say, the latest research shows that ice baths may "modestly attenuate gains in muscle hypertrophy."³ Now, there are two important caveats to mention.
1. This tends to apply when a person takes an ice bath within 15-20 minutes post-training.
Unfortunately, we don't know how this might differ if someone waits a few hours or more after training. However, due to the desired recovery benefits, most people take an ice bath immediately after training.
2. Ice baths seem to mitigate growth, not completely eliminate it. Now this could be an attractive benefit for some athletes such as long-distance runners or anyone not interested in maximal gains.
Can You Still Use Ice Baths?
So what does this mean for you? Well, if muscle growth is a priority, you should stay away. While there may be a protocol to utilize ice baths without the detrimental side effects to muscle, researchers simply don't know the details on how to do it.
But what if muscle growth is important to you, but you are interested in taking ice baths for other benefits. How should you go about taking the plunge without risking muscle loss?
As we mentioned, we don't know for sure. However, we would suggest taking the ice bath as far away from your training session as possible.
Perhaps the most important lesson from all this is to not believe everything you see on the internet, especially when it comes to fitness advice on social media.
References
- Xiao, Feiyan, et al. “Effects of Cold Water Immersion after Exercise on Fatigue Recovery and Exercise Performance--Meta Analysis.” Frontiers in Physiology, vol. 14, 20 Jan. 2023, p. 1006512, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9896520/#B40, https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2023.1006512.
- Piñero, Alec, et al. “Throwing Cold Water on Muscle Growth: A Systematic Review with Meta‐Analysis of the Effects of Postexercise Cold Water Immersion on Resistance Training‐Induced Hypertrophy.” European Journal of Sport Science, 5 Feb. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsc.12074.
- Piñero, Alec, et al. “Throwing Cold Water on Muscle Growth: A Systematic Review with Meta‐Analysis of the Effects of Postexercise Cold Water Immersion on Resistance Training‐Induced Hypertrophy.” European Journal of Sport Science, 5 Feb. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsc.12074.
Garett Reid
Author