Taking an ice bath after a workout limits your muscle growth
Take-aways
Taking an ice bath after a session likely reduces muscle growth.
If you’re trying to limit muscle growth (e.g. endurance athletes who are trying to keep muscle mass lower), CWI after a session can be advantageous. Conversely, if you’re trying to gain muscle, avoid CWI after finishing a session.
CWI potentially reduces muscle growth by interfering with the inflammatory response, MPS or bloodflow.
CWI may be less detrimental (or not detrimental) for muscle growth when performed far from the immediate post-lifting timeframe.
Alongside sitting in a sauna, taking an ice bath/cold water immersion (CWI) has become one of the most popular recovery modalities used by fitness enthusiasts, even successful physique athletes such as Chris Bumstead, multiple time Classic Physique Mr. Olympia.
However, a recent meta-analysis by Pinero and colleagues suggests CWI after a session blunts muscle growth. Let’s dive in.
This meta-analysis included 8 studies. Participants in these studies all performed resistance training. Then, the CWI group got into cold water/ice tub, usually within 15 minutes after a lifting session, whereas the control group didn’t.
In brief, CWI appears to reduce how much muscle growth you see across a training program.
That said, the effect appears relatively small. Indeed, while CWI does seem to reduce muscle growth, even when CWI is used, you do generally still observe some muscle growth; it’s just less growth than if you skipped CWI.
A: Lifting without CWI. B: Lifting with CWI.
Why?
There are several mechanisms that could be responsible for the reduction in muscle growth. First, CWI seems to reduce myofibrillar muscle protein synthesis, which is part of the muscle growth process. Secondly, it may also mess with bloodflow, the acute inflammatory response to muscle growth and more.
Importantly, the studies in this meta-analysis exclusively looked at CWI immediately after lifting. If CWI was performed further from a session (e.g. before a session), it’s less clear how detrimental CWI would be.
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