This topic has runners and experts divided. It’s time to settle the debate.
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It’s common to see a cold plunge listed as an amenity at your nearby gym or wellness facility, or spot a wellness influencer online timing how long they can stay in the freezing temperatures. But should you, as a runner, add ice baths to your recovery routine?
It’s a topic that has many runners and even experts divided. On one hand, some people praise ice baths as a recovery tool for relieving muscle soreness, and on the other, research suggests ice baths could dampen some of the muscle gains you make from your workout. Some runners also say suffering in the cold leaves them feeling more depleted, while others say it makes them feel refreshed.
To help you decide if it’s worth diving into the cold, we tapped experts and scoured the research to air out the facts. Here’s what you should know.
Ice Baths for Runners from a Research Perspective
Research does show cold plunges can help relieve soreness better than other recovery modalities—specifically, active recovery, contrast therapy (which involves hot and cold water), and warm water immersion. In fact, a systematic review and meta-analysis that included 28 studies, published in Sports Medicine, names cold water immersion as superior to these recovery methods, particularly when it comes to easing muscle soreness.
When it comes to performance, however, research indicates that ice baths dampen the build and repair processes that we desire to create change and growth, says Chris Joyce, PT, DPT, PhD, associate physical therapy professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professionals. Essentially, when runners push hard in a workout, muscles begin to break down. After, those muscles will repair and rebuild, getting stronger. Ice baths may slow or stop that repair and rebuild process, and that’s one strike against ice baths, Joyce argues.
The research review that explains this effect looks specifically at ice baths immediately after resistance training, and calls out potential mechanisms like reducing acute inflammatory responses and reducing blood flow to the muscles.
The good news: You’re probably not blunting any endurance gains, because most of the negative effects associated with ice baths are related to muscular hypertrophy (a process by which your muscles increase in size), explains Carson Gantzer, MS, CSCS, a strength coach and performance physiologist at Human Powered Health, based in Arizona. Unless you’re cold plunging after a strength-training session or hill repeats where muscle stimulation and growth is the goal, the cold shouldn’t blunt training adaptations.
However, Gantzer notes that even if ice baths won’t mess with your running progress, the gains promised by many gyms and wellness facilities are greatly exaggerated.
“Some of these places that offer these ice bath services are hundreds of dollars a month, and people think it’s making this massive difference, but most of that is a great placebo effect,” Gantzer says. “People definitely do report feeling less fatigue, less perceived soreness, and things like that. But the actual data looking at what happens if you do a hard workout and immediately jump in an ice bath and then repeat the workout the next day—there just isn’t a big difference.”
The data Gantzer is referring to is a meta-analysis of 20 studies published by Frontiers in Physiology. It found participants who used postexercise cold water therapy reported lower levels of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and rate of perceived exertion (RPE, a measure of subjective recovery), compared to those who didn’t jump in the cold, both immediately after the workout and the next day (but not two days after). Researchers also found postworkout cold water therapy temporarily reduced jump performance (used as a marker of strength) immediately after a workout, and that the cold actually had little effect on reducing inflammatory markers.
Reducing muscle soreness and boosting feelings of recovery may help you better prepare for your next workout. But it’s not a long-term solution for issues like chronic inflammation. The reality is the effects of an ice bath are transient, says Joyce; it may help with recovery after one workout, but it won’t change how your body functions in the long-term.
It’s also important to note that research on ice baths, in general, is limited, particularly in the number of participants and, as Joyce points out, long-term payoffs.
Ice Baths for Runners from a Coach’s Perspective
Run coach David Roche tells Runner’s World that he’s generally skeptical of the benefits of ice baths. However, he does mention they were readily available trackside for runners to use while he was coaching at the Olympic Trials. “You know who I see in the ice baths there?” he says. “Gold medalists. And I’m not going to say that the gold medalist is doing it wrong.”
Plus, some of the runners he works with use postrun ice baths during big training blocks, so it’s hard to ignore their relevance, but actually implementing this recovery strategy is more nuanced than many runners may think.
It ultimately comes down to what works for you—and even that may change depending on the circumstances. “On one hand, there’s an argument that they reduce inflammation response and blunt training adaptations, but if you’re dealing with runaway inflammation from autoimmune conditions, they might be helpful,” Roche says.
If you are stiff and sore, and an ice bath helps, great, Roche adds. “That ‘feeling better’ signal your brain is sending you is more important than any meta-analysis of the research,” he says.
However, Roche is a much bigger fan of hot tubs and saunas for recovery, because they also provide potential heat adaptation benefits—and for many, they are more enjoyable overall.
A Final Take on Ice Baths for Runners
Before you jump into an ice bath, ask yourself: What are you trying to accomplish? If it feels good, fantastic—carry on. But if it’s to build mental toughness, one of the common reasons wellness influencers are hyping ice baths these days, then perhaps it’s time to rethink your strategy.
Here’s the thing: Running is already hard. It already requires mental toughness to do it, so you don’t have to take an ice bath to prove you’re mentally capable.
“Yes, intensity does matter,” says Joyce. “The harder you train, generally, the greater your gains are. But I don’t think the same can be said for recovery.” You need to recover “hard” in the sense that it should be just as important to your training, but it shouldn’t actually feel difficult, like an ice bath might.
He adds that when it comes to recovery, what feels good to one runner will be different from another: A hot tub may work well for one runner, while an ice bath feels better for another. Strictly from a recovery and feeling standpoint, there’s no reason you should do one versus the other.
If you are going for a cold plunge, you don’t need to pay for a pricey membership to get the benefits. Ice baths completed in studies are typically between 46 and 59 degrees, and you can achieve the same effects at home with a tub and a bag of ice from a local gas station for a fraction of the price, says Gantzer.
Plus, Joyce says, the benefits of ice baths and other fad interventions are drastically outweighed by the benefits of good sleep and nutrition.
At the end of the day, if you love the postrun ice bath and you believe that it’s doing good, feel free to keep cold plunging. “When it comes to something our athletic ancestors have sworn by, like cold plunging, perhaps there are times and places for it and you won’t know what works for you until you try,” Roche says.
The best times to use an ice bath:
- When you did a hard workout and you have a big day tomorrow too (or you’re doing a double day). Because it helps decrease feelings of soreness, it can make you feel ready to go again faster, explains Roche.
- If you’re training during a heat wave and trying to quickly cool down afterward, says Gantzer.
- If you enjoy it. As Roche points out, recovery should make you feel better, not like you’re pushing through the pain.
When to skip an ice bath:
- If it’s just a regular everyday run. From a psychological standpoint, it’s better to save ice baths for particularly hard efforts or training blocks. If you save it for those really hard days, it’s going to have a much stronger psychological effect, potentially making you feel even better. “You’ll get that feeling of taking care of yourself,” says Gantzer. “And the placebo effect is really powerful.”
- If you heard it’s great for weight loss, as Gantzer bluntly puts it, “you’re not going to lose weight by sitting in cold water.”
- If you don’t have time. This is an extra, not a necessity, so if you’re already training on a tight schedule, Gantzer notes that trying to add in a cold plunge is an added stressor that’s likely going to make you feel worse, not better.
