This is a frequently asked questions by players and competitive athletes
after they have completed prolonged and exhaustive exercise. Should you have
the resources available in your club, this is a true dilemma. Both forms of
cryotherapy, either whole body cryotherapy (BC) or cold water immersion (CWI)
are used to speed up recovery. The suggested mechanism of potential beneficial
effect of cryotherapy is associated with reduced inflammation, muscle damage
and muscle soreness perception. Whether or not cryotherapy assists in a faster
recovery of the functional capacity and sports performance is still debatable.
Whole body cryotherapy is gaining more popularity and this
is due to the fact with this form of cryotherapy athletes can be exposed to far
higher temperatures compared to CWI (around -85 °C vs. -10 °C).
This level of air temperature during the whole BC is assumed to limit inflammation
by reducing peripheral blood flow and, hence, speed up recovery after
exhaustive exercise. However, there is very little evidence to support this
assumption. Therefore, the effect of whole BC vs CWI is still under investigation.
In a recent study, published in the European Journal
of Applied Physiology, 31 trained but recreational runners completed a test
marathon and following the run they were allocated in 3 groups in terms of the
recovery means they used: the CWI group, that immersed lower limbs and iliac
crest at water of 8 °C for 10 min; the whole BC group, that was exposed to two
cold treatments in a cryotherapy chamber (3 min at − 85 °C followed by a 15-min warming period in ambient temperature + 4-min bout at − 85 °C); and the placebo group. Participants
in the placebo group consumed 2 × 30 ml per day of a fruit flavored drink
which did not contain any antioxidants or phytonutrients 5 days before the run,
in the day of the run and for 2 days after. In this group, participants were simply
asked to rest in ambient temperature for 10 min following completion of the marathon.
The results of this study showed that the implementation of
a cryotherapy intervention resulted in at least unclear effects for every
outcome measure when compared to the placebo intervention. As the authors state
in their manuscript it seems that any beneficial effect of cryotheraphy after
exercise is simply a product of the placebo effect.
These findings support the idea of planning the recovery strategy
that best fits the beliefs and the needs of the individual athlete.
Source
Wilson et al (2018). Recovery following a marathon: a
comparison of cold water immersion, whole body cryotherapy and a placebo
control. European Journal of Applied Physiology 118:153-163.
