A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined Division I collegiate soccer players. The study put them through sprints and measured vertical jump. Then half of them received a 15-minute ice bath in 54°F water. The other half sat quietly for 15 minutes, which probably wasn’t a hard sell after running 20-meter sprints to exhaustion. After 24 and 48 hours all participants performed the sprints and vertical jump again.

The findings? Those who received an ice bath did not perform significantly better than those who sat quietly and browsed Facebook on their phones for 15 minutes. To be fair, the ice bath group did perform a tiny bit better, but the difference was statistically insignificant, so we can’t be sure it’s because of the ice bath. Turf conditions or an unruly meal at a Mexican restaurant the night before could just as easily have been the culprit.

This comes just one month on the heels of another study showing that applying ice to fatigued muscles didn’t improve recovery. Nay – it delayed recovery. In fact, participants in the group that iced their muscles reported feeling more fatigued than the non-icing group at 72 hours after exercise.

Last month Kelly Starrett took on icing in this article. He makes a compelling argument, concluding that icing can indeed reduce pain, but it does not improve recovery.

But icing is sacred. Most of us in the strength and conditioning community were taught that icing an injured or seriously fatigued muscle is required if you are serious about training. This new research flies in the face of coach, grandma, conventional wisdom, and probably even Jesus. A world without icing may be difficult to accept.

What do you think? Have we heard the last of icing, or is it somehow therapeutic in a way that these studies have failed to show?

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A new study was performed to determine if body core cooling via the palm of a hand could increase work volume during exercise.

The study investigated whether there was a correlation between elevated core temperatures and fatigue onset during exercise, and whether or not palm cooling between sets of resistance exercise affected strength and work volume training responses.

There were a total of 67 subjects who participated in the study, ranging from 19 to 23 years old. There were three protocols used in this study: heat stress and fatigue, work volume training response, and strength training response.

In the heat stress and fatigue protocol, the core temperature of each participant was manipulated with 30-45 minutes of fixed load and treadmill exercise in the heat with or without palm cooling. Work volume was then assessed by four sets of a fixed load bench press.¹

Details of the study protocols were as follows:²

• The work volume training response protocol consisted of repeated sets of overhand grip pull-ups or bench press exercises that were separated by three minute rest periods. The subjects performed two trials per week, and either underwent palm cooling during the rest period or did not partake in palm cooling during the rest period. Each set of the exercises was performed to failure.
• There were two pull-up studies: in one pull-up study, there were 7 subjects who participated in a 6-week series of palm cooling during rest periods, and either a 2 week series of rest-only trials or a 6 week series of rest only trials. The routine consisted of 10 sets of pull-ups. In the second pull-up study, 11 athletes who were new to pull-up exercises participated in 12 sequential trails with palm cooling during rest periods, and 12 sequential trials with no palm cooling. The exercise routine consisted of 6 sets of pull-ups.
• There was also a bench press group which included 17 subjects who participated in 5 bench press workouts. The weights were 50% of 1RM, and remained constant throughout the study. Each workout consisted of 6 sets of bench press.
• The strength training response protocol included 10 subjects participated in a bi-weekly 10-week training program. The program consisted of 6 sets of bench press with 3 minute rest periods. The workouts were of a pyramid design. The experimental manipulations were either rest only, or palm cooling during rest periods. The treatment order was interset rest only for the first eight training sessions (4 weeks) followed by palm cooling during interset rest for the subsequent 12 sessions (6 weeks).

The study determined the palm cooling resulted in a 40% increase in work volume, compared to only a 13% in participants with no cooling treatment.

Over 6 weeks of pull-up training, palm cooling increased work load volume by 144%, compared to 5% of those who performed pull-ups with no palm cooling, and 80% in the new pull-up subjects.

The strength of those who performed pyramid bench press training for 4 weeks with no treatment followed by 6 weeks with palm cooling, increased by 22%.³

The results of this study verify that there is a correlation between core temperature and fatigue onset during resistance exercise, and may suggest a new method for training.

There are a few devices currently on the market designed to cool palms and these have been targeted toward athletes whose sport is grip-intensive. Now, it seems, palm cooling may be useful to many athlete beyond its benefits to grip.

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The study consisted of eleven male college baseball players. Each participant performed an eccentric exercise protocol which included six sets of preacher curls at 85% of their one rep max. All subjects performed two bouts of eccentric preacher curls, or negative reps, on the preacher curl for both arms. Researchers assisted the participants’ arms back to the flexed position upon completion of each rep to ensure no concentric contractions occurred.²

The participants were randomly placed into either a topical cooling or sham groups which did not include ice. Five sessions of 15-minute cold pack application to the exercised muscle were conducted at completion of exercise, 3 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours after eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage. Muscle hemodynamics, inflammatory signs, muscle damage markers, visual appearance, and muscle isometric strength were assessed before and after exercise.³

The data that resulted from the study suggested icing not only does not improve recovery from eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage, but it actually delays recovery. In this study, an immediate elevation of blood perfusion in the exercised muscle was evident after a period of icing. Indicators of muscle damage known as creatine kinase-MB isoform and myoglobin levels were shown to increase after application of the cold pack. Additionally, pain and fatigue actually elevated after the cooling treatment as well. Icing had very little to no impact on inflammatory symptoms. There were no results to indicate whether the muscle strength increased after cooling, which has been found in prior studies.⁴

Science proves yet once again that a common method considered beneficial can in fact potentially be detrimental. Although baseball players were used in this study, the results do not indicate whether recovery from muscle damage induced by pitching would be hampered by icing. Consequently, this opens the door for further investigations to determine correlations between icing and recovery in activities such as pitching, as well as needed studies on concentric movements.⁵

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The post Put Down That Ice! Icing May Actually Impede Recovery appeared first on Breaking Muscle.