The effect of cold water immersion on recovery from fatigue

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to look at the effect of cold water immersion on recovery from fatigue. Furthermore, the study aimed to provide information towards a set protocol for the amount of time after exercise, athletes should undertake cold water immersion. As a result of the aims of the study quantitative methods were employed. The study consisted of 12 participants, who completed baseline testing followed by a variation of the Loughborough Intermittent Shuttle Test protocol. Participants then randomly undertook immediate cold water immersion, cold water immersion after 10 minutes or no cold water immersion. Finally, two hours after LIST protocol the participants were retested. Upon completion of the testing statistical analysis was undertaken to identify trends in the data. The main findings of the present study are that cold water immersion and recovery from fatigue are not positively related. Some positive trends were found with some of the physical performance tests. When the date was analysed however, the results were not found to be significant to statistical significance. It was therefore concluded that cold water immersion does not have an effect on recovery from fatigue. It was acknowledged that there is a need for many more high quality studies to provide evidence based guidelines for cold water immersion.