Cold-water immersion for muscle soreness after exercise

Cold-water immersion may reduce delayed onset muscle soreness after exercise compared with passive interventions involving rest or no intervention.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study limitations (lack of blinding, failure to adhere to the intention-to-treat principle, selective outcome reporting), by imprecise results (few patients for each comparison) and by inconsistency.

Summary

A Cochrane review on cold-water immersion in the management of muscle soreness after exercise included 17 studies with a total of 366 subjects. Muscle soreness showed statistically significant effects in favour of cold-water immersion after exercise as compared with passive intervention at 24 hour (SMD –0.55, 95% CI –0.84 to –0.27; 10 trials), 48 hour (SMD –0.66, 95% CI –0.97 to –0.35; 8 trials), 72 hour (SMD –0.93; 95% CI –1.36 to –0.51; 4 trials) and 96 hour (SMD –0.58; 95% CI –1.00 to –0.16; 5 trials) follow-ups. Studies using cross-over designs or running based exercises showed significantly larger effects in favour of cold-water immersion. Pooled data for pain showed no evidence of differences between groups comparing cold-water immersion with contrast immersion (alternating immersions in hot and cold water), with warm-water immersion or with active recovery, compression and a second dose of cold-water immersion at 24 hours.

Clinical comments

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Ədəbiyyat

1. Bleakley C, McDonough S, Gardner E et al. Cold-water immersion (cryotherapy) for preventing and treating muscle soreness after exercise. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2012;(2):CD008262.