Muscle Recovery and Contrast Bathing

 

Professional athletes, recreational athletes, and those of us with athletic aspirations often train rigorously resulting in muscle strains, bruises, and/or tears. When this occurs traditional rehabilitation programs work with athletes to heal and recover from their injury. Typically, muscle recovery techniques are administered during periods of injury.

       Yong Li reports in an article entitled Cutting Edge-Muscle Recovery that “injured skeletal muscle can repair itself via spontaneous regeneration, but extracellular matrix overgrowth and collagen deposition can lead to fibrosis, resulting in incomplete functional recovery and a propensity for injury recurrence” (Physician and Sports Medicine, 2005). So, what can athletes do to prevent injury, restore muscles, and avert mental fatigue which can affect their overall performance?

     The Australian Institute of Sports has developed a fatigue and recovery recommendations list for athletes to integrate into their training program ultimately boosting performance and warding off injury. Their program includes

·      Rest and sleep

·      Nutrition

·      Warm-down, stretch

·      Massage

·      Hydrotherapy

·      Psychological means

The idea is for athletes to include in their training program a segment focused on recovering from workouts and competition in order to return to their natural physiological and psychological condition. This routine can allow athletes to remain balanced, healthy, and maximize performance as well as not excessively compromising their performance.

Hydrotherapy included in the fatigue and recovery recommendations list for athletes serves as a healing process and muscle recovery mechanism for their bodies. Heat, buoyancy, and motion are three elements working together providing a healing effect for the body according to an article published in Psychology Today entitled Soak Away Stress.

Other articles highlighting the benefits of hydrotherapy in muscle recovery discuss contrast bathing, which utilizes both cryotherapy and thermotherapy. Cryotherapy uses cold water to narrow blood vessels reducing swelling, inflammation, and pain sensation. Thermotherapy uses hot water widening blood vessels increasing blood flow as well as reducing joint stiffness and muscle spasms. Alternating between cryotherapy and thermotherapy is called contrast bathing and works to speed up the removal of lactic acid.

It’s important to note that while there are several articles on contrast bathing/therapy’s role in muscle recovery more research is requested by many field experts to understand this form of healing.  To review contrast bathing implementation guidelines please refer to Australian Institute of Sports contrast water therapy protocols by clicking here. As always, please consult with a physician for any medical concerns you may have to review benefits and risks of any treatment program.

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Comments

[Steve White]

I'm in a very intense weight training class right now. I've been using the whirlpool tub in my steam shower to recover from my 2 hr. workouts. My muscles are tight even after I do my cool down. I'm 43 and the muscles don't just relax like they did when I was 18. The tub is sooo much better than a regular hot bath to get back to regular life. The steam shower is also helping with weight loss, I use the steam sauna to purify my system. I think i've lost 5 lbs. so far. Great products!! I'm thinking of getting a infared sauna to compliment the other products I've got from you guys. Any suggestions on a specific model?

[Randy Hause]

This is a really good way to warm up and cool down. I have been sitting in the whirlpool tub for ten minutes before my workout and ten minutes after and that is after a quick rinse in the shower. I've found that after doing this for two weeks, I recover much faster. If I have any swelling I take a quick cold shower. It works and I tell ya what the exhausted feeling goes away after a cold shower.