Icing interferes with strength training
PainSci summary of Yamane 2006?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided at the bottom of the page, as often as possible. ★★★☆☆?3-star ratings are for typical studies with no more (or less) than the usual common problems. Ratings are a highly subjective opinion, and subject to revision at any time. If you think this paper has been incorrectly rated, please let me know.
It’s only one study, but … yikes! This fascinating experiment done by Japanese researchers showed that regular icing for a few weeks after workouts resulted in a significant reduction in training effects: ice users didn’t get as strong. This implies that icing may interfere with normal post-exercise muscle physiology and prevent the process of muscles adapting to stress. This finding is reinforced by Tseng et al.
original abstract†Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
The influence of regular post-exercise cold application to exercised muscles trained by ergometer cycling (leg muscles) or handgrip exercise using a weight-loaded handgrip ergometer (forearm flexor muscles) was studied in human volunteers. Muscle loads were applied during exercise programs three to four times a week for 4-6 weeks. Besides measuring parameters characterizing muscle performance, femoral and brachial artery diameters were determined ultrasonographically. Training effects were identified by comparing pre- and post-training parameters in matched groups separately for the trained limbs cooled after exercise by cold-water immersion and the corresponding trained limbs kept at room temperature. Significant training effects were three times more frequent in the control than in the cold group, including increases in artery diameters in the control but not in the cold group. It is concluded that training-induced molecular and humoral adjustments, including muscle hyperthermia, are physiological, transient and essential for training effects (myofiber regeneration, muscle hypertrophy and improved blood supply). Cooling generally attenuates these temperature-dependent processes and, in particular, hyperthermia-induced HSP formation. This seems disadvantageous for training, in contrast to the beneficial combination of rest, ice, compression and elevation in the treatment of macroscopic musculo-tendinous damage.
related content
- “Massage therapy attenuates inflammatory signaling after exercise-induced muscle damage,” Justin D Crane, Daniel I Ogborn, Colleen Cupido, Simon Melov, Alan Hubbard, Jacqueline M Bourgeois, and Mark A Tarnopolsky, Science Translational Medicine, 2012.
- “Topical cooling (icing) delays recovery from eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage,” Ching-Yu Tseng, Jo-Ping Lee, Yung-Shen Tsai, Shin-Da Lee, Chung-Lan Kao, Te-Chih Liu, Cheng- Hsiu Lai, M Brennan Harris, and Chia-Hua Kuo, Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 2013.
These two articles on PainScience.com cite Yamane 2006 as a source:
- PS Post-Exercise, Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness — The biology & treatment of “muscle fever,” the deep muscle soreness that surges 24-48 hours after an unfamiliar workout intensity
- PS Massage Does Not Reduce Inflammation — The making of a new massage myth from a high-tech study of muscle samples after intense exercise
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- A Bayesian model-averaged meta-analysis of the power pose effect with informed and default priors: the case of felt power. Gronau 2017 Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology.
- The neck and headaches. Bogduk 2014 Neurol Clin.
- Agreement of self-reported items and clinically assessed nerve root involvement (or sciatica) in a primary care setting. Konstantinou 2012 Eur Spine J.
- Effect of NSAIDs on Recovery From Acute Skeletal Muscle Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Morelli 2017 Am J Sports Med.
- Association of Spinal Manipulative Therapy With Clinical Benefit and Harm for Acute Low Back Pain: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Paige 2017 JAMA.