Abstract
Delayed onset muscle soreness commonly results after sports and exercise activity. Cold‐water immersion (CWI), which involves people immersing themselves in water at temperatures of less than 15°C, is sometimes used to manage muscle soreness after exercise and to speed up recovery time.
Our review included 17 small trials, involving a total of 366 participants. Study quality was low. Fourteen trials compared cold‐water immersion applied after exercise with 'passive' treatment involving rest or no treatment. The temperature, duration and frequency of cold‐water immersion varied between the different trials as did the exercises and settings. There was some evidence that cold‐water immersion reduces muscle soreness at 24, 48, 72 and even at 96 hours after exercise compared with 'passive' treatment. Limited evidence from four trials indicated that participants considered that cold‐water immersion improved recovery/reduced fatigue immediately afterwards. Most of the trials did not consider complications relating to cold‐water immersion and so we cannot say whether these are a problem. There were only limited data available for other comparisons of cold‐water immersion versus warm or contrasting (alternative warm/cold) water immersion, light jogging, and compression stockings. None of these showed important differences between the interventions being compared.
While the evidence shows that cold‐water immersion reduces delayed onset muscle soreness after exercise, the optimum method of cold‐water immersion and its safety are not clear.