Practice ends around 5:30, weight room closes at 6. Wow, rough crowd.
The miami hurricane football team uses the cold pool (55 degrees) in tubs absolutely no longer then five minutes. A quote from the coach can be found in the book entitled “home rememdies” part 2.
That’s perfect…Time to change my protocol!
One team I know use ice baths for all their players. Each player gets a bath twice for 1 min at a time.
What would the effects of such be for the athletes?
Apart from the limited benefits …
I had a compitition with my friends, in a freezing cold shower. The shower comes at you form all directions acept for the floor. Yeh and we had to see how long we cold stay in the shower for, i came second and stayed in it for 1minute 8secs, and after i came out i could not speak properly, and i was shaking dead mad. It was great, i think that night done me damage though, because we where playing it all night.
I think it has done me mental, and physical damage.
One minute showers…I love it!
By the way - this is also after probably millions of 400’s with no break - but anyway …
Apart from the obvious short sharp shock to the system - ANY benefits Clemson?
Or what would the side effects be?
Perhaps…but I KNOW what works for me.
A question regarding ice baths or cold therapy in general:
How would the idle temperature where you live in change the effects of ice baths as a means of recovery/regeneration? Say we have an athlete who lives/trains in 20-30°C 6-8 moths a year and another who lives/trains where the general outside temperature stays around 0°C 4-6 moths a year. Would the one who stays where it’s warmer benefit more from cold therapy? The 0-degree athlete would obviously train indoors whereas the other one outdoors.
Any thoughts?
Article Mr Freeze is excellent Clemson. Do you have any ideas about number of times per week that ice baths can be used? I would like to do them as often as possible without going overboard. Any suggestions? I am actually goingto use the North Sea as my ice bath once I check the temperatures - cos it is free, always open and always damn cold!
Best used post-high CNS stress days (which is generally 2, max 3 pwk) and can be used instaed of localised iceppliction post extremely hard sessions where the aim is to reduce inflamation on perhaps injured areas.
Bill Romanowski takes 15 minute ice baths the day after each game. Romo also hasn’t missed a game in the last 15 years or so (if my memory serves me correctly) due to injury.
I think they work.
Just a matter of having the balls to do it…or lack thereof after the bath. I’m sure they’d look like two raisins and a 5 month old baby-cut carrot thats been sitting in the back window of your car without you knowing about it.
Romo’s supplement and prehab work are unreal.
If I can remember right he uses ‘The Cube’ I think it’s called.
I prefer athletes do them once or twice a week if they do two or three speed sessions…do them on the speed days. Remember that half the games in the NFL are on the road…so that might explain why Bill does it the day after. I love that guy.
Hydrotherapy (When to Use hot versus cold)
This is what I believe. I find that after speedwork/heavy cns workouts there is quite a bit of dmos the next day or days (however long it takes to occur). Now saying that a program is a good one we want to be fresh for speedwork. Now Im not talking always 100% fresh but being as close as possible. Since dmos takes longer after a heavy speedwork day, I think the goal would be to bring up the dmos as fast as possible. Therefore clemson hypothesis of using cold on speedwork days would make the most sense. Cold would bring on the dmos the fastest. Try it youll be sore trust me. (For those of you who dont know what dmos is. Its delayed muscle onset fatigue). The body is overwhelmed with damage that occured during the workouts. Ok so cold after speedwork. Cold on tempo days? Only in certain cases. Now no.23 theory cold the day after speedwork can be used also. I find generally though only on specific body parts which are sore. Not a full submersion. this might bring unwanted soreness during the next day of speedwork. Why? Go ask I scientist Im the adam corolla of sprint training. Ok. So cold on speedays, but also heat can be used on speed days also throught contrast or other means. Forget about that for now. Both heal the body. What about tempo does that mean hot. Ok lets look at what cold vs heat do.Cold decreases blood flow, while heat increases it. So to me it makes the most sense to use heat on a tempo day. Why. It increased blood flow flexibility. Relaxes contracted musles and rids the body of waiste. Some of the goals of a tempo workout.
EXAMPLE:1
M Speedwork cold tub
T Tempo heat whirlpool
W Speedwork Cold tub
R Tempo heat whirlpool
F Speedwork Cold tub
Now say on tuesday your shoulder hurts but everything is fine. Ice it. For ten minutes at time. Dont ice the whole body though. Because the rest of the body is fine. Now I find along with other therapists heat such as in a contrast fashion can be used everyday. So if you wanted to incoporate heat on speed days I would use it a couple hours after the cold tub.
EXAMPLE:2
More specific program:
M Cold after speed (until numb and no pain) Evening: Contrast Whirlpool
3 minutes hot (104%), 1 minute cold pool (84%) . Duration 1 hour.
*Use in 4 cycles with 5-15 minute break inbetween.
T before practice 10minutes whirlpool, Evening: Contrast whirlpool (duration 1 hour) Steamroom/Sauna 15 minutes
W Speed day program
R Tempo day program
F Speed day program
Charlie using hydotherapy strickly as a recovery method. Does this look right? (i know times/temps will vary). What are your thoughts on using cold immersions and contrast baths or heat during the same day. My thoughts are you will be sore immediately after cold immersion. So later to start healing the soreness you can use heat. Does this sound plausible to you?
I have updated this post about 50 million times. Sorry I keep changing it. Anyone here have any thoughts? I almost erased it because it is still very iffy on what is the quote unquoted correct way to do all of this. Could you give us some insight into how you guys used it charlie,
Clemson - that could be true also - though I’d be very surprised if Cold therapy wasn’t included in some form post-match.
I would imagine the next day cold therapy is just part of a longer rehabbing session
I also know Denis Rodman - don’t laugh - used spent up to 40 mins post match on an exercise bike warming down slowly.
(Like the Converse add said - “while you were laughing at my hair I was winning rings”)
Tim -
Not a correction but just to point out -
I think the key point is what happens after the temperature treatment - not what the immediate effect of the application of hot/cold is … etc.