About this Research Topic
Post-exercise cooling is currently one of the most popular recovery strategies utilized amongst athletes, and has been of interest to many research groups. Common cooling modalities include cold water immersion (CWI), whole-body cryotherapy utilizing cryo-chambers, or mix-methods approaches involving cooling garments, hand cooling and ice slurry ingestion. To date, there over 100 original research articles documenting the effects of post-exercise cooling on various outcomes, including the recovery of physical performance, regulation of inflammatory markers, perception of fatigue and wellbeing. Despite this plethora of research, there is substantial discrepancy in the literature, with studies demonstrating improved or unchanged or with a small body of research, impaired recovery profiles. While the divergence amongst research findings can be attributed to numerous factors including the cooling modality and protocol, nature of exercise stressor and recovery variable and environmental conditions and participant profile, it has resulted in much controversy regarding the use of post-exercise cooling, often resulting in misinformed messages for practitioners in exercise and sports science settings.
In this Research Topic, we would like to invite scientists to offer commentary and critically examine key areas surrounding the use of recovery cooling strategies, which would aid in developing the available body of literature into appropriate context for practitioners, as well as direction for future research. Manuscripts can be focused towards a particular cooling modality (e.g., CWI), or discuss multiple cooling modalities. We welcome researchers to submit manuscripts in the form of narrative reviews, systematic reviews with meta-analysis or meta-regression and commentary/perspectives on the following recovery cooling topics listed below. Only novel Original Research that contributes to one or more of the outlined themes will be considered.
• Recovery from strenuous exercise: influence of cooling modality and protocol
• Post-exercise cooling and recovery from strenuous exercise: influence of exercise task and recovery measure
• Post-exercise cooling and recovery from exercise heat stress
• Post-exercise cooling and recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage
• Post-exercise cooling applied to team sport
• Post-exercise cooling applied to endurance sports
• The use of post-exercise cooling for physical recovery: lessons from the field from elite practitioners
• Practical applications of post-exercise cooling
• Cold water immersion and its influence on blood flow & vascular adaptations
• Cold water immersion and adaptations to endurance exercise
• Cold water immersion and adaptations to resistance exercise
• Hemodynamic changes following post-exercise cooling with implications for exercise recovery
• Changes in autonomic nervous system function following post-exercise cooling – implication for exercise recovery
In this Research Topic, we would like to invite scientists to offer commentary and critically examine key areas surrounding the use of recovery cooling strategies, which would aid in developing the available body of literature into appropriate context for practitioners, as well as direction for future research. Manuscripts can be focused towards a particular cooling modality (e.g., CWI), or discuss multiple cooling modalities. We welcome researchers to submit manuscripts in the form of narrative reviews, systematic reviews with meta-analysis or meta-regression and commentary/perspectives on the following recovery cooling topics listed below. Only novel Original Research that contributes to one or more of the outlined themes will be considered.
• Recovery from strenuous exercise: influence of cooling modality and protocol
• Post-exercise cooling and recovery from strenuous exercise: influence of exercise task and recovery measure
• Post-exercise cooling and recovery from exercise heat stress
• Post-exercise cooling and recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage
• Post-exercise cooling applied to team sport
• Post-exercise cooling applied to endurance sports
• The use of post-exercise cooling for physical recovery: lessons from the field from elite practitioners
• Practical applications of post-exercise cooling
• Cold water immersion and its influence on blood flow & vascular adaptations
• Cold water immersion and adaptations to endurance exercise
• Cold water immersion and adaptations to resistance exercise
• Hemodynamic changes following post-exercise cooling with implications for exercise recovery
• Changes in autonomic nervous system function following post-exercise cooling – implication for exercise recovery
Keywords: : Whole-body Cryotherapy, Cold Water Immersion, Exercise-induced Muscle Damage, Exercise Heat Stress, Physical Recovery
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
