IOL Strength and Conditioning

At the back of the Spa Fitness Center, circa 1980, behind the thick, steamed-up glass, across the gold shag carpet and past the blue machine with the wooden fat rollers, picture a well-populated pool, steam and sauna area. Between the pool and the simmering whirlpool, a small, deep cold plunge. Why it was there, I never knew, but since it was, it must have been there for a reason, so I used it—sauna, steam, then cold plunge to whirlpool.

Thirty years later, the cold plunge is back in vogue, and perhaps there really is something to it, something more than Scandinavian history involving a sauna and the local snowpack.

Byron Chandler, one of our main educators over in the forum, writes, “Weightlifting coach Mike Burgener’s method of training is based on the Bulgarian system: It involves hard, heavy training on the Olympic lifts and variants on consecutive days, and he swears by cold baths after training to speed recovery. He reports it takes some cajoling at first to get people to dunk in an ice cold bath after training, but when they find they are recovered the next day, they are willing to keep at it. I decided to try it and I think it does reduce soreness the next day. While it doesn’t feel good shivering in the shower, it does feel good after.”

Okay, so Byron suggests it to me; I’ve seen it over and over in workout recovery articles, and of course I understand the value of icing an injury to bring down the inflammation, so I take it a little seriously, but not so serious it held longer than a single heart-stopping trial run.

Then a couple other people I trust, Suzie Lundgren, my miracle-working Feldenkrais teacher, followed by Laurel Wolfe, a knowledgeable myofascial massage therapist, recommended trying alternating hot and cold water in the post-workout shower.

A month later, with a contrast shower shaking up my skin and jolting my circulatory system daily, let’s start with the obvious part: This gets easier with practice.

One thing I’m working on is to calm the breathing, calm the shock factor. It’s fascinating to feel the difference between a fast plunge, the instant switch from hot to cold, vs a slower change involving several steps from the hottest to the coldest. Obviously, the slower changes are less of a jolt and easier to handle, but I also think the method might be a little more useful, too, because there are multiple surges of circulatory stimulation, and if you take your time, breathe calmly with eyes closed, you can clearly feel the systemic wave of circulation, entirely different from the breath-taking jolt as the water switches from the hottest to the iciest.

I’ll have to practice both techniques more to be certain; one thing’s for sure: working on the slower switches between hot and cold have made the instant switch a lot easier to handle, so at the very least, you can use that to ease yourself into contrast bath post-workout therapy.

The longer and hotter you stay in the heat, the more cold you can handle… longer.

Says Mike Nelson, “Remember, the body uses sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation. Think of sympathetic as the accelerator (increases heart rate, among other effects) and parasympathetic as the brake (slows down heart rate).

The body likes to have a balance of parasympathetic and sympathetic at all times. Acute exercise (in general) increases sympathetic stimulation. A proposed way to faster recovery (ability to do more work with a shorter period of rest) is to increase parasympathetic, the “rest and digest” component of the nervous system.”

Mike continues, “I am not currently sold on cold water immersion for recovery purposes. This study is very interesting, but other data is conflicting.”

The paper The Effect of Cold Water Immersion on Postexercise Parasympathetic Reactivation, Buchheit, Peiffer, Abbiss, Laursen, (2009), implies success: “CWI may serve as a simple and effective means to accelerate parasympathetic reactivation during the immediate period following supramaximal exercise.”

As does, The Effect of Contrast Water Therapy on Symptoms of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, Vaile, Gill & Blazevich, (2007):  “Contrast water therapy seems to be effective in reducing and improving the recovery of functional deficiencies that result from DOMS, as opposed to passive recovery.”

Over at Mark Verstegen’s Core Performance, their group suggests, “By immersing the body in alternating temperature extremes, you can increase blood flow and promote muscle recovery. The hot water causes your blood to rush away from your internal organs and towards your skin. The cold water causes the blood to rush away from your skin to keep your internal organs safe and warm. … Not only will the increased blood flow promote muscle recovery, the cold water in particular will decrease the natural post-workout inflammation.”

Here’s an opposing viewpoint on page 232 of Therapeutic Modalities (Kenneth Knight), who believes the contrast bath therapy is flawed, and suggests general workout soreness is best treated in a warm whirlpool.

Contrasting heat and cold hydrotherapy is contraindicated for patients with kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and possibly hyperthyroid conditions.

Here’s the deal—no big surprise: You have to try it and decide for yourself. If you have thoughts, please contribute to our community here: Hot and Cold Plunge thread.

During my 1980 Spa time, I didn’t use the fat rollers, so I guess “because it’s there” wasn’t really the reason for the cold-plunge use now that I think of it. I wonder if in retrospect the rollers worked better than expected, too. No… no… I’ll have to draw the line there.