Thoughts guys on the use of baths on the morning following a particularly hard session, training day or game day …
I usually do a (light) tempo session in the evening.
Should I use a cold bath to spike the body into lower body circulation as the day progresses or a longer warm bath to ease out the muscles and follow with light stretching?
Perhaps light flushing EMS?
What an ice bath will do, no23, besides easing inflamation is dialate your arteries and veins. When you’re in the ice-water the body slows the bloodflow to the extremities and sends the majority of it through the BIG arteries in an attempt to keep them from freezing. (Who cares about your fingers or toes anyway eh?) When you get OUT of the bath your body INCREASES circulation to all parts of your body in an effort to re-heat them. This will help clean out all of the nasty-poos in your blood system IF you allow your body to naturally warm up. You can dry off, but don’t jump in a hot shower.
What I usually do is take an ice bath, and while I’m recovering from that I fill the tub up w/hot water & then give give a light message to my sore limbs. However, I do all of this the night of the hard workout or meet and do some slow stretching in the morning to get the tightness out.
If you are working out in the morning than an evening tempo session won’t hurt and will probably help get the gunk outa your system. But like you emphasized, light amounts of work is better. If you are working out in the afternoon, then I would warn against a tempo run. If you did a proper cooldown you shouldn’t have to do another run so close to your workout.
G’luck
Thanks for that Palmtag,
I use ice baths after all CNS work and to good effect.
It’s just occasionally after quite severe weight sessions that are a little late in the evening I can feel quite sore the next morning - ‘next-morning-stiffness’.
I used sprint and lift early in the morning and this soreness wasn’t as issue because like you said the ice (along with whatever movement I was doing throughout the rest of the day) helped get the gunk out of the system and left me felling nice and cool the next morning.
However - now I am lifting later in the afternoon/evening and I seem to be sorer the next morning.
Another contributing factor …
I also stopped MSM a few weeks ago and I think this may be affecting me also, I would have expected a delyed effect from what I know of MSM and it’s buildup in the system.
I have tried ice baths first thing the morning after a hard lifting session but I haven’t felt any difference
A warm bath the following morning seems to have a slightly better effect.