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Fitness: What are contrast baths and how can they help with muscle recovery?
Summary
You have heard of ice baths to help your sore muscles or recover from a sports injury. But what are contrast baths, and how are they helpful?
The efficacy of ice baths and cold showers to treat sore muscles and treat sports injuries have been well documented. However, temperature treatment does not end just there. The next and more advanced step, which is also doable at home, is taking contrast baths.
This could be the simple task of soaking your feet in cold water for a minute, removing them for 15-20 seconds, and then soaking them in warm water for a minute, to help plantar or any kind of foot pain. And it could also be the more complicated run from a cold shower to a steam room a few times after a vigorous week of training your muscles.
The science is what makes contrast baths so interesting. What it is doing is switching between vasoconstriction, which is the blood vessels getting smaller in cold water, and vasodilation, which is the blood vessels opening up in warm water. “When you rapidly alternate between hot-water and cold-water immersions, your blood vessels open and close in a pulsing, pump-like motion. Some proponents think this pumping action can help relieve various injury symptoms," states a Healthline article titled, What To Know About Contrast Bath Therapy.
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Mostly used by top athletes, this can be done at a simpler and smaller scale as well, and to treat even something as simple as a calf injury—like the one I suffered a week ago while playing football. Given that there was access to an ice-cold shower and a sauna, this was the first step to relieving the muscle of the hematoma that had developed over the injury. It wasn’t the cure, but it was the first step to making sure that the blood vessels were acting to try and fix the area. This is a form of hydrotherapy.
“If you don’t have access to a spa with saunas and hot and cold pools, that is not a problem at all," says Kapil Sharma, who is the head of medicine and rehabilitation at the Reliance Foundation Young Champs. Sharma has also worked in football for a decade, with eight seasons at numerous Indian Super League (ISL) clubs. He says that one should not mix ice therapy with contrast therapy. “The warm temperatures need to be between 38-42 degrees Celsius and the cold temperatures can be 8-10 degrees Celsius. So you can rely on buckets or even a geyser, switching from warm to cold water with 15-20 second gaps in between so that your skin can goes back to regular temperature before you move it from one end of the temperature spectrum to the other," says Sharma.
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He talks of his experience at Serie A club AS Roma during an observation excursion while learning his trade. The players there have seats on which they sit and get automatically hoisted from a warm pool to a cold pool with the temperatures carefully managed. Contrast therapy can make a big difference when it comes to recovery, treatment, and even soreness.
“When the blood flow increases to the affected areas, the lactic acid goes and you reset your body. This can be used when treating bone contusion or bad knocks directly on the bone because the blood supply to bones isn’t great and contrast baths promote faster healing," says Sharma.
This means that people who suffer from calcaneal spurs or even heel spurs can use this form of treatment to good effect. These spurs are usually bony growths in response to Achilles tendinopathy or plantar fasciitis.
Sharma adds that people who have swellings due to age can also use contrast baths but care needs to be taken about the delicacy and sensation on the skin because some might be more sensitive to temperature changes than others.
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But it’s worth taking a look at other opinions as well. “Contrast baths have perhaps the least scientific backing out of the three immersion techniques we’ve looked at. Cold water immersion has the strongest, having been demonstrated as a good way to reduce muscle soreness after a strenuous workout. Hot water immersion has its uses too, but carries the risk of promoting inflammation and swelling," states a Runner’s Connectarticle that takes a deep dive into multiple studies done on ice baths, contrast baths and hot baths.
The article, titled, Contrast Bath Therapy For Runners: Is It Worth Your Time?further adds that their therapeutic results are inconclusive. They may have long-lasting effects, or they could just another form of an active recovery session after an intensive workout.
With fitness enthusiasts focussing on recovery as much as the workout, it probably comes down to how much time you have, and what your need is. If one is prepared to go for a 20-minute walk after a marathon for muscle recovery, do that. If you have the chance to dunk yourself in an ice bath, then there is nothing like that. And if you want to try something like a contrast bath and check how relieved you feel, it’s always an option.
Pulasta Dhar is a football commentator, podcaster and writer.
