The Acute and Longer-Term Effects of Cold Water Immersion in Highly-Trained Volleyball Athletes During an Intense Training Block

Abstract

Background: The use of cold water immersion (CWI) as a recovery strategy following exercise has drawn mixed findings over the last few decades. The purpose of the current study was twofold ; (1) to determine the acute effects of CWI within the training week, and (2) to investigate the longer-term effects of CWI over a 16-day period. Methods: In a randomized, controlled trial, 13 national-level volleyball athletes were allocated to two groups, an experimental (CWI, n = 7) and a control group (n = 6) during a 3-week national training camp. The experimental group were exposed to a CWI protocol after the last training session of each day (12 CWI sessions). Measures of lower (countermovement jump and squat jump height) and upper-body (medicine ball throw distance) power were collected pre-and post-training camp. Perceptual and neuromuscular performance measures (countermovement jump) were obtained during the training camp. Results: No significant differences between groups were observed for any measure (p > 0.05), however, small effect sizes were observed between experimental and control groups on day two of weeks one and two. Three weeks of training resulted in a significant decrease in countermovement jump height in the control group. A moderate effect size (d = 0.65) was found for countermovement jump performance between the experimental and control groups. Conclusion: Cold water immersion seems to provide little benefit to recovery in the acute setting (within the training week), however, chronically, there was a trend toward a benefit when implementing cold water immersion in well-trained volleyball athletes over 16 days.

Acute Performance, Daily Well-Being, and Hormone Responses to Water Immersion After Resistance Exercise in Junior International and Subelite Male Volleyball Athletes

“…An alternative explanation is that postexercise water immersion results in temperature-dependent changes in power production by an elevated rate of anaerobic metabolism (15) and creates a favorable hormonal environment to aid the recovery of neuromuscular performance (9), with both aspects confirmed by our results (Figures 3 and 5). The outcomes of this study differ to other research reporting postexercise CWI did not influence acute neuromuscular performance in volleyball (9,52), or weightlifting (47) athletes, nor in recreational subjects after resistance exercise (2). However, the study in weightlifters (47) demonstrated intersubject differences with some improvements in neuromuscular performance obtained on an individual basis, while we report a high variability in individual response as evident by the SD in Figures 2–4 (above).…”

What Parameters Influence the Effect of Cold-Water Immersion on Muscle Soreness? An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…For instance, CWI does not seem to promote detrimental effects on performance in the subsequent day of its application for soccer and volleyball athletes. 69,70 However, the technique may attenuate performance immediately after its application. 56,71 Thus, because of the current controversial state of the art on this matter, care must be taken when deciding whether or not to apply the CWI, especially regarding the desired objectives.…”

Adaptations to Post-exercise Cold Water Immersion: Friend, Foe, or Futile?

“…Recent work (Table 1) examining the longer-term effects of CWI on training performance and recovery amongst professional and semi-professional athletes provides invaluable insights regarding CWI programming and recovery-adaptation interaction throughout training/competition phases (Lindsay et al, 2016;Tavares et al, 2019Tavares et al, , 2020Seco-Calvo et al, 2020). These studies collectively demonstrate no impairments in strength gains despite administering frequent post-exercise CWI over 2.5 weeks to 8 months.…”