Prolonged cooling with phase change material enhances recovery and does not affect the subsequent repeated bout effect following exercise

Abstract

Prolonged cooling with phase change material enhances recovery and does not affect the subsequent repeated bout effect following exercise. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 120 (2). pp. 413-423.

Don't Lose Your Cool With Cryotherapy: The Application of Phase Change Material for Prolonged Cooling in Athletic Recovery and Beyond

“…A central effect from local 15 • C PCM cooling was since confirmed by the reduction in core temperature and increase in heart rate variability evident during PCM treatment in individuals at rest (Kwiecien et al, 2019). These findings suggested that prolonged PCM cooling delivered a systemic, and not just a local effect; and might explain, in part, the accelerated recovery evident from PCM cooling following eccentric exercise (Kwiecien et al, 2020a), soccer match play (Clifford et al, 2018;Brownstein et al, 2019) and baseball pitching (Mullaney et al, 2020). However, the central effect occurring from PCM cooling remains to be directly elucidated in individuals following exercise.…”

“…Recent studies examining the effects of prolonged 15 • C PCM cooling on indices of recovery in untrained (Kwiecien et al, 2018) and trained (Kwiecien et al, 2020a) individuals found that 6 h of PCM cooling not only accelerated recovery of soreness, but also accelerated recovery of strength loss on the days after isolated eccentric quadriceps exercise (Table 1). Importantly, the protection provided by the PCM cooling after an initial bout of eccentric exercise did not interfere with the repeated bout effect, whereby an initial bout confers an adaptive protective effect for a subsequent bout of damaging exercise (Kwiecien et al, 2020a). Similarly, 3 h of 15 • C PCM cooling has also been shown to accelerate recovery of quadriceps strength following soccer match play (Clifford et al, 2018;Brownstein et al, 2019; Table 1) and shoulder internal rotation strength and grip strength following baseball pitching (Mullaney et al, 2020; Table 1).…”

“…While prolonged cooling using 15 • C PCM was shown to be successful in accelerating recovery following eccentric exercise (Kwiecien et al, 2018(Kwiecien et al, , 2020a, soccer (Clifford et al, 2018;Brownstein et al, 2019), and baseball pitching (Mullaney et al, 2020), no benefit of accelerated recovery from 15 • C PCM cooling was found when administered for 3 h in runners following a marathon (Kwiecien et al, 2020b; Table 1). It is possible that the efficacy of prolonged cooling using 15 • C PCM is dependent on the mode of exercise stress resulting in muscle damage, i.e., mechanical vs. metabolic stress.…”

“…To date, PCM cooling has only been studied in exercise recovery models with benefits shown for reducing strength loss and soreness after isolated eccentric exercise (Kwiecien et al, 2018(Kwiecien et al, , 2020a, accelerating recovery in professional (Clifford et al, 2018) and semi-professional soccer players (Brownstein et al, 2019), and improving strength recovery in baseball pitchers (Mullaney et al, 2020). These studies have answered some fundamental questions and provide some good "proof of concept" that continuous and prolonged PCM cooling application can help recovery of muscle function, reduction in soreness, and does not seem to attenuate acute adaptive responses (Kwiecien et al, 2020a). Nevertheless, in the exercise recovery paradigm, many questions remain unanswered, and the application of prolonged PCM cooling for injury management warrants more research.…”

“…Furthermore, 15 • C PCM packs can be applied concurrently to multiple athletes, or even entire teams at a time. Recent evidence suggests that prolonging the duration of cooling for three (Clifford et al, 2018;Brownstein et al, 2019;Mullaney et al, 2020) to 6 h (Kwiecien et al, 2018(Kwiecien et al, , 2020a is well tolerated by recreational and professional athletes alike and can accelerate more than just subjective recovery following exercise. Therefore, this narrative review will aim to summarize the current evidence in support of prolonging the duration of cooling by using 15 • C PCM, for its capacity to accelerate and aid recovery following exercise.…”