Whether training or stage racing, recovery is the name of the game. Many tools and tricks have been used to maximize recovery, including the chilly prospect of cold-water immersion. But does a post-ride dip really help with cycling recovery?
One of the fascinations with stage racing is the riders' ability to hammer themselves into the ground, then wake up and do it all over again the next day. Of course, recovery back to 100-percent is almost impossible (except during the darkest days of the doping era), and the signs of weakness and lack of recovery in this year's Tour has been suggested as evidence of a cleaner sport.
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When it comes to training, the hard-efforts on the bike are only half of the equation. Without adequate recovery, fitness will never be achieved. Putting in more hard efforts before your body has had time to recover from the previous training session can be detrimental and lead to training stress. Even worse, a continued lack of recovery will either stagnate your training or degenerate into non-functional over-reaching (NFOR) or full-blown overtraining syndrome (OTS).
One of the fashionable recovery methods among professional athletes is that of cold-water immersion (CWI). The basic premise is that like icing an injury, CWI will minimize swelling and inflammation in the muscles post-exercise, along with providing an analgesic (painkilling) effect.
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The use of CWI first became popular with impact sport athletes such as football, rugby and soccer. But it has become increasingly common in cycling, with teams like Omega-Pharma Quick-Step adopting the practice years ago. The big scientific question is whether there is actual ergogenic benefit for cyclists.
The evidence to date is equivocal about any benefit for cyclists. Most studies rely on employing plyometric jumping, high-impact sports (e.g. downhill running), or heavy weight lifting (e.g. eccentric contractions such as lowering a very heavy weight) to test the effects of heavy muscle damage. Not only is this unrealistic when compared to the action of pedaling a bike, but the damage is generally way beyond anything that would be experienced by cyclists.
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"What are the effects of post-exercise cooling (duration, temperature, and type of cold application) on performance recovery in trained athletes?"
There were two interesting approaches that were conducted by the authors here at PEZ. First, the investigation focused on trained athletes only (competitive on a regional level, active at least three times per week, and with a VO2max >55 mL/kg/min), eliminating studies that utilized relative non-trained subjects.
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Second, they systematically analyzed the existing literature using a meta-analysis. This has become very popular in medical research. Let's see what this type of analysis is all about.
Meta-analyses instead statistically analyze a broad range of scientific studies to come up with an overall effect size or the expected difference from a manipulation (e.g. CWI improves sprint performance by 2.6-percent). One glaring benefit is that while only 10 subjects may be tested in one particular study, a meta-analysis may find 20 studies, each with 10 subjects, and calculates the effect size with the 200 subjects instead, making for a more powerful analysis.
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What I take away from the Poppendieck et al. (Poppendieck et al. 2013) meta-analysis is that CWI, if done with the above guidelines for temperature and depth of exposure, MAY have the potential for slightly improving recovery and subsequent performance. In a worst-case scenario, CWI doesn't appear to harm endurance exercise performance, so it is a good candidate for those with a "marginal gains" philosophy.
For the rest of us, CWI might remain of interest but only after a very, very heavy day or block of training. It is likely that we can get the same or greater recovery benefits by focusing on other easy-to-do post-ride recovery options like nutrition and getting adequate sleep.
Ride fast and have fun!
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