In my last video, I talked about how the benefits of cold plunges appear to be due to the placebo effect.

But cold water immersion isn't just futile, but may be a foe when it comes to our muscle mass.

A key take-home message is that if the goal of trainings to build muscle mass and strength,

regular cold plunges after exercise may not be beneficial.

It all started with this study in 2006, showing that cold-water immersion of muscles

may actually interfere with regentive processes and retard rather than support the desired

improvements of muscular performance.

Since then, independent corroborating evidence has continued to accumulate that post-exercise

cooling diminishes muscle adaptations to strength training leading to punny clickbait titles like cryotherapy, are we freezing

the benefits of exercise? Is the ice bath finally melting the cold truth, cooling down

the use of cryotherapy? Here's a typical study showing that cold plunges substantially

attenuates long-term gains in muscle mass

and strength.

Twelve weeks of strength training with just typical active recovery led to a significant

increase in muscle mass in the quads, but the same amount of training with cold plunges

barely moved the needle.

And this manifested in significantly less strength, whether we're talking maximum leg-press

strength, knee extension, isometric torque, or rate of force development.

Note that smaller muscles don't necessarily lead to less strength.

In this study, the blunted muscle fiber growth didn't translate to impaired strength development,

but post-exercise cold plunges

should be avoided if you do actually want bigger muscles.

...