UC scientists on post-exercise cold water immersion benefits

Canterbury scientists investigating post-exercise cold water immersion benefits

January 26, 2015

After monitoring recovery interventions in the Crusaders Super 15 rugby camp last year, University of Canterbury scientists want to investigate if immediate post-exercise cold water immersion is the main contributing recovery factor.

Biological sciences researcher Associate Professor Steven Gieseg, PhD student Angus Lindsay and summer school student Sam Carr are observing the level of muscle damage and inflammation in fighters following mixed martial arts fights.

They selected the full-contact combat sport that allows striking and grappling because of its increasing popularity and physicality that compares to, and if not overshadows, the level of trauma associated with rugby.

The University of Canterbury researchers will examine people’s recovery after fights at the Strikeforce Canterbury Fight Gym in Christchurch, developing a new, cost-effective and simple analytical technique that provides muscle quantity in a clinically relevant range similar to that most likely observed in trauma victims.

“Following each of the contests, half the fighters will commence a recovery protocol that requires them to submerge themselves in a cold bath following the fight, and on the two mornings following, while the other group will not,” Lindsay says.

“We hope to show that the group that completes the cold water immersion will have significantly reduced levels of inflammation and muscle damage that will reduce recovery time and allow for the resumption of normal training sooner, and without compromising performance.

“Overall, this type of research should clarify the effectiveness of cold water immersion following exercise that induces significant physical trauma. Importance of recovery interventions is to ultimately decrease recovery time following intense exercise to allow for the resumption of normal training and optimise performance and results.

“It’s about preventing non-functional over-reaching and over-training syndrome which can cause under-performance. Research literature identifies several key recovery protocols that have been shown to increase performance in comparison to others, however the evidence presented remains equivocal.

“These include cold water immersion, contrast water therapy, sleep, massage, active recovery, stretching and nutrition. Most research uses a carefully controlled design, however we observed the effect of real world data on recovery protocol effectiveness in professional rugby.

“Rugby players consumed protein and carbohydrates, wore compression garments, completed a cold water immersion and had eight hours sleep following each game. The intervention occurred the following day to identify whether the day after protocols had any effect on physiological biochemical markers,” Lindsay says.

More than 720 students studied biological sciences at Canterbury last year, including 120 postgraduates.

ENDS

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