AUTHOR=Tavares Francisco , Simões Mário , Matos Bruno , Smith Tiaki Brett , Driller Matthew 

TITLE=The Acute and Longer-Term Effects of Cold Water Immersion in Highly-Trained Volleyball Athletes During an Intense Training Block

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

VOLUME=2

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sports-and-active-living/articles/10.3389/fspor.2020.568420

DOI=10.3389/fspor.2020.568420

ISSN=2624-9367

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> The use of cold water immersion (CWI) as a recovery strategy following exercise has drawn mixed findings over the last few decades. The purpose of the current study was two-fold; (1) to determine the acute effects of CWI within the training week, and (2) to investigate the longer-term effects of CWI over a 16-day period.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> In a randomized, controlled trial, 13 national-level volleyball athletes were allocated to two groups, an experimental (CWI, <italic>n</italic> = 7) and a control group (<italic>n</italic> = 6) during a 3-week national training camp. The experimental group were exposed to a CWI protocol after the last training session of each day (12 CWI sessions). Measures of lower (countermovement jump and squat jump height) and upper-body (medicine ball throw distance) power were collected pre- and post-training camp. Perceptual and neuromuscular performance measures (countermovement jump) were obtained during the training camp.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> No significant differences between groups were observed for any measure (<italic>p</italic> &gt; 0.05), however, <italic>small</italic> effect sizes were observed between experimental and control groups on day two of weeks one and two. Three weeks of training resulted in a significant decrease in countermovement jump height in the control group. A moderate effect size (<italic>d</italic> = 0.65) was found for countermovement jump performance between the experimental and control groups.</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> Cold water immersion seems to provide little benefit to recovery in the acute setting (within the training week), however, chronically, there was a trend toward a benefit when implementing cold water immersion in well-trained volleyball athletes over 16 days.</p>