Cold water immersion after exercise may help or hinder recovery depending on sport type

A systematic review and network meta-analysis pooled 87 randomized controlled trials involving 2,313 healthy athletes to compare how different cold water immersion protocols affect recovery and performance across resistance training, endurance exercise, and team sports. Results were mixed and largely of low certainty, with passive rest outperforming cold water immersion for strength outcomes in resistance training, while some protocols showed potential benefits for power and perceived recovery in other contexts.

What the study found

For athletes focused on building strength through resistance training, passive rest was associated with better outcomes than cold water immersion, with moderate certainty evidence suggesting that immersion at moderate temperatures for medium durations produced no meaningful benefit over doing nothing (effect size near zero). This is a notable finding that runs counter to the widespread assumption that cold immersion universally aids recovery.

For resistance training power — a distinct quality from strength — longer immersion at colder temperatures showed a potentially meaningful positive association, though the certainty of this evidence was rated low and the credible interval was wide, meaning the true effect could range from negligible to substantial.

In endurance exercise, no protocol produced a statistically clear benefit for aerobic performance, and recovery-focused outcomes showed only a non-significant trend favoring moderate-temperature immersion over passive rest. Team sport athletes showed the most promising signal for cold immersion on power output, with colder, longer protocols ranking highest, though again with low certainty and wide uncertainty ranges.

Across all three modalities, secondary analyses found that moderate-temperature immersion was associated with reductions in muscle damage biomarkers and improvements in perceived recovery — outcomes that held across a larger pool of studies and showed clearer statistical signals, though these were exploratory rather than confirmatory analyses.

Limits worth knowing

The review included only studies published between 2014 and 2025 and restricted to healthy athletes, limiting generalizability to recreational exercisers or clinical populations. Approximately 85% of participants across included studies were male, leaving the applicability of findings to female athletes largely unresolved. Heterogeneity between studies was moderate to high, and 69–85% of the network comparisons relied on indirect rather than head-to-head evidence, which reduces confidence in protocol rankings. The certainty of evidence for most primary outcomes was rated low by the authors. Long-term adaptation effects were not captured, and no funding disclosures were noted in the abstract.

About this entry. The Heartwood Review summarizes published, peer-reviewed research in its own words and links to the original source. It is not medical advice; consult a physician before beginning or changing any thermal or recovery practice. Findings summarized here describe the study cited, not any product sold by Teak & Marble Atelier. Corrections.