Ice baths for sport, fitness & recovery
Athletes have long used ice baths for muscle recovery, but cold water delivers much more. It enhances mental performance, energizes workouts, and supports overall fitness and wellbeing—making it a powerful tool that transforms both body and mind.
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Why do athletes take ice baths?
Reducing DOMS is one thing, but ice baths are now used for pre-cooling before training too, to build mental toughness and induce metabolic adaptation in the off season, enhance focus and mental clarity on game day.
Why recovery is the new performance
Recovery is no longer seen as an afterthought, it’s becoming the foundation of sustainable fitness. Compounded by today’s stress-filled lifestyle, recovery is an important skill for both mental and physical wellbeing. If we don’t recover well, we can’t perform well and reach our full potential.
Salus London’s Laurence Fountain
Laurence is the owner of Salus London. An elite gym that provides training, body conditioning, and lifestyle coaching. Laurence is interested in the mental and emotional benefits of using ice baths as much as the physical. He believes it’s a tool to heal both mind and body.
Ice baths and the worlds strongest men
According the Tom and Luke Stoltman, it’s no coincidence that they’ve won more titles since using their Brass Monkey ice bath. With multiple World’s Strongest Man and Europe’s Strongest Man titles between them, they use their ice bath to enhance both their mental and physical performance. They use it for recovery, but it also helps Tom manage his ADHD, bringing him calm in the stillness of the extreme cold. For Luke it energises him, leaving his body fizzing and his mind with a laser focus. Watch their story and learn how the world’s strongest men build even stronger minds.
Our guides to the use of ice baths for sport, fitness & recovery
Can ice baths help you lose weight?
After an ice bath, one of the methods the body uses to reheat itself is shivering ( or ‘thermogenesis’). The answer to this question lies in the fuel the body burns to generate the shiver…
The science of cold water exposure and fitness
Master your physical, mental, emotional health with our one-stop guide to deliberate cold exposure. Get the science behind the benefits, discover why it’s so good for you and how to get started.
We make the worlds finest ice baths
The ice has the power to change us for the better. Make us stronger. More resilient. More in control. That is why we build the world’s finest ice baths and cold plunges.
FAQs
This all depends on your gender, your metabolism, your weight, age, and how often you practice cold water exposure. In short, it’s impossible to accurately say, but you could have a play with this calculator: https://www.diveblast.com/blogs/cold-therapy/ice-bath-calories-burned-calculator
Ice baths are not a primary weight loss method, but you do burn brown fat when you shiver as your body generates heat to warm up after your dip. The more you dip, the more efficient this mechanism becomes. Nothing can substitute the impact of good diet and exercise for weight loss, and ice baths should never be considered as a shortcut to losing body fat.
Yes. Ice baths help physical recovery after endurance workouts, HIIT training and strength training. However, it’s important to understand how and when to use your ice bath depending on the type of exercise.
Reduced muscle soreness as the cold water decreases inflammation. This helps you recovery quicker making you ready to ‘go again’ sooner.
Precooling can be beneficial for endurance workouts, especially in warm environments. Short dips can help pre-workout for an energy and focus boost. Post workout ice baths help with recovery. Women naturally vasodilate more after exercise, and ice baths help redistribute blood centrally without excessively constricting vessels, allowing for faster recovery without compromising strength gains. Men, by contrast, experience strong vasoconstriction post-exercise, and immediate cold exposure can blunt hypertrophy signals