Dr. Duncan French

And as much as those guys that had the highest adrenergic response in terms of epinephrine release, norepinephrine release, also sustained force output,

for a longer period of the workout than those that didn't.

So the individuals that had a lower stimulus of the sympathetic arousal, let's say, certainly didn't perform as well throughout the workout.

Throwing your body into a cold tub, an ice bath or whatever it may be, certainly is going to have a physiological stress response.

Now, people are using that for different end goals.

And again, I think that's where the narrative has to be explained.

If you are using the stress specifically to manage the mindset,

to use it as a specific stress stimulus.

That's the same as me doing six by 10, 80%.

You're just trying to find something to disrupt the system, to do something that's very, if you want a better term, painful, discomfort, whatever.

You're just finding a stressor and then being able to manage the mindset.

But if you're using cold specifically from a physiological perspective to promote, you know, redistribution of vascularity of blood flow, you know, to different vascular areas of muscle that you feel have gone through a workout that are damaged or whatever it may be.

I think we've got to understand what that stress mechanism is.

And the data, the literature is certainly still out there with respect to cryotherapy and cold baths and some of these cold exposures in terms of what they do at the level of the muscle tissue.

If that's the target, if you're trying to promote a flushing mechanism or you're trying to promote redistribution of the blood flow, what you've got to understand is that cold is going to clamp down every part of the vascular system.

And we've really got to understand how the muscle would be redistributed to areas of interest.

So I think the stress response is a real thing with respect to cold exposure.

But I think the narrative around what are you using the cold for has to precede the conversation.

Yeah, there's some pretty robust data out there now showing that it definitely has an influence on performance variables like strength and power in particular, but absolutely in terms of muscle hypertrophy.

And there's a big kind of theme in the world of athletic performance right now in terms of periodization of cold exposure as a recovery modality.