The wellness world is full of people who freeze after a workout because they think it will help them get the most out of their gym session.
They include actor and muscleman Chris Hemsworth, pop star Lizzo and wellness guru Gwyneth Paltrow, who are all included in this year’s Olympics.
But experts warn that doing this right after lifting weights could actually be stunting muscle growth.
In fact, research shows that immersing yourself in cold water stunts the development of your body’s muscles and can make it harder for you to grow bigger and stronger in the long run.
Hemsworth has shared that he enjoys ice baths for muscle recovery. Pictured here in 2022, he took part in a three-minute ice bath on Instagram to raise awareness for Alzheimer’s disease.
Experts say that taking a cold shower in the hours after weight training can make it harder for your body to build muscle.
“Doing a cold water dip after a workout is likely hurting your gains,” said Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a fitness educator who studied Biomedical Sciences and Nutritional Biochemistry.
Dr. Patrick shared in an X that the cooling effect can actually reduce the amount of protein your body produces after a workout to build muscle.
When you lift weights, your muscles tear. Your body repairs these tears with proteins that, over time, make your muscles bigger and stronger.
The less protein the body produces, the less muscle strength and growth occurs.
“People looking to improve their muscle conditioning should reconsider using cooling as part of their recovery strategy,” he said.
Baths are best used as a way to treat injuries immediately after a workout, not as a way to improve physique, said Dr. Luc Van Loon, professor of exercise physiology and nutrition at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
If you are injured during exercise, cold can help reduce swelling and pain.
But experts recommend against taking ice baths long-term because evidence shows they hinder muscle growth and strengthening. Andres JagimMayo Clinic sports medicine specialist.
If you’re looking to build muscle, avoid taking cold showers on the same day you lift weights or do calisthenics, Dr. Patrick said.
Despite these warnings, post-exercise cold therapy appears to be at its peak of popularity.
Google searches for ice baths have… It has roughly doubled since 2019 and cold immersion searches have increased almost 50 times the same period, thanks in part to how popular they have become online.
Joe Rogan promotes them on one of the world’s most popular podcasts. International sporting legends such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lebron James have been seen lounging in the polar pools after games.
In response, many different products for home cold water baths have appeared. These include The Ice Pod’s portable ice bath for $99, SunHome Sauna’s option for $4,499, and BlueCube’s Elite cold water tub for $21,490.
While Dr. Patrick is a fan of ice baths and cold showers for their purported inflammation-reducing benefits, she doesn’t recommend them in every situation.
She explained this with a clip from an interview with Dr. Van Loon on her podcast called Found My Fitness.
“From a muscular perspective, it doesn’t make sense to think that cold is really helpful in recovery after exercise,” Dr. Van Loon said.
In the interview, Dr. Van Loon explained a study he conducted in 2019, which included twelve young men and was published in The Journal of Physiology in 2019.
Study participants placed one leg in cold water and the other in room-temperature water 15 minutes after performing some type of resistance exercise. They did this six times over two weeks.
The scientists then observed how the muscles behaved and discovered that The leg placed in cold water had more difficulty making proteins than the leg placed in warm water.
He said he predicted that these effects would plateau over the two weeks the study lasted, but that over time, the leg that was submerged in cold water had less muscle recovery than the leg in warm water.
A separate document A study by exercise scientists at the City University of New York in 2024 that reviewed eight older studies on the topic found similar results.
Existing studies on athletes who used cold therapy were found to show that using cold therapy after resistance training decreased the body’s ability to build muscle.
The researchers concluded that getting cold right after a workout doesn’t completely prevent someone from building muscle, but that doing resistance training without a cold bath was more effective overall in those trying to bulk up.
These results also don’t mean there are no benefits to using cold water after exercise, Dr. Van Loon said.
He mentioned that professional and extreme athletes can benefit from ice baths after a session because it helps heal their injuries.
X users were quick to point out that ice baths remain a favourite of sports superstars.
“In football, during the season our goal is to maximize recovery, so it really depends on what the goal is. In preseason, it’s a different story,” said user X seitentaisei11.
But if you’re an average gym-goer trying to build muscle, using a cold water dip six hours after lifting weights or doing calisthenics could inhibit your growth, Dr. Van Loon said.
Dr. Patrick said it is not necessary to avoid cold baths altogether. But she said you should simply wait until a day when you’re not lifting weights, wait six hours after a session or opt for a less extreme cold, such as taking a cold shower.
“Tune-in how and when you use cold water immersion is important to optimize muscle gains,” Dr. Patrick said.
