Digestery
Lifestyle practices › Cold Plunges and Recovery › Studies

Randomized trial · measured the question itself

12-week trial in 21 men: cold water after training led to smaller muscle gains

Roberts and colleagues · The Journal of physiology · 2015

Original title: Post-exercise cold water immersion attenuates acute anabolic signalling and long-term adaptations in muscle to strength training.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to harm

Strength and muscle mass grew more with active recovery than with cold water (P < 0.05). Type II muscle fibre size rose 17% with active recovery but not with cold water.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
21 people · 21 physically active men doing 12 weeks of strength training
What was tested
10 minutes of cold water immersion after each training session, twice a week for 12 weeks, vs active recovery
What it measured
The question itself: muscle recovery, mood and immune health
How long
12 weeks
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed.
Journal
The Journal of physiology, 2015
Source
PubMed record 26174323. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • –Small: 21 people. Small trials can miss real effects or find chance ones.
  • •Lasted 12 weeks.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: muscle recovery, mood and immune health.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: muscle recovery and mood

    8

    1 benefit, 1 mixed, 5 no difference, 1 harm

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    8

    2 benefit, 1 mixed, 4 no difference, 1 harm

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    3

    1 benefit, 2 no difference

  4. Population studies

    3

    2 benefit, 1 mixed

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does cold plunging help recovery and mood?”

Eases soreness a little; mood unproven.

Confidence: low. Based on 30 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 7 papers on the same step: 1 benefit, 1 mixed, 5 no difference. This one found harm. It differs from most of them.

  • Quoted in “What we found”: In 21 men lifting weights for 12 weeks, strength and muscle mass grew more with active recovery than with 10 minutes of cold water after each session.
  • Part of the finding “Regular use after weight training blunted muscle gains”.
  • Marked as a key paper in the research timeline: Cold water after lifting blunted strength and muscle gains.
  • Open item for a person: Peake 2017 (nine men, biopsies at 2, 24, 48 h) may share participants with the second study in Roberts 2015; check overlap.

Other papers on the same step

See all 30 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The reviewer corrected 2 fields after reading the abstract. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
Not yet. Required before search engines may list this page.

Spot an error? Email a flag with a link to your source, or use the form on the question page.