The Perfect Ice Bath
There are those times when you train so vigorously that you know you will be worthless for the rest of the day and be sore for the next three. On those occasions I turn to the ice bath. This thing is magical. I step in feeling beaten down and bad, five minutes later I step out feeling well, still beaten down but good.
Everyone knows to ice an injury. I’m not breaking any paradigms there. When you apply ice to an inflamed tissue, vasoconstriction occurs and fluids are flushed out of the area. That is why an ice pack on a swollen ankle is helpful. Now imagine the effect of submerging your entire lower body to the lower back in ice water and chasing that inflammation 3-4 feet away from the source of pain.
Everyone has their own technique for coping with the raw physical discomfort of an ice bath. Here’s mine:
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| It doesn’t have to be like this. |
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| Well it doesn’t really have to be like this either, but this guy has the right idea. |
- If you’re inflamed enough to consider an ice bath you are probably exceeding your free radical tolerance too, so start off with some CoQ10 and vitamin C.
- I Keep 4-6 large water balloons filled and in my freezer at all times. My kids had a phase when they froze everything so I came upon this idea by accident. I like to use big birthday balloons or the grenade colored water balloons. You don’t want to skimp with those little hand held balloons.
- These are particularly useful when you are hitting the ice bath when you are still a hot, boiling mess from whatever terrible sport/wod/event you just took part in. The ice cube ice bath heats up as the cubes melt, but not the frozen balloon bath.
- Fill the tub half way and add a cup of Epsom Salts and 4 frozen water balloons with the balloon peeled off.
- Fill the rest of the way
- Add two trays of ice cubes
- Pull on a wool hat, a scarf, grab your phone, set a 5 minute timer
- Climb into the tub. If this is only for your legs, get a FIRM grip on your phone and pull up a mindless app. I recommend Plants vs. Zombies. I’ve actually let the timer run through 3 times trying to keep those pesky undead beasts off my lawn.
- If your arms are trashed too, as mine were this morning from a thorough Franning, then put the phone down. It’s time for full commitment.
- Grab one of those orbs of ice that’s floating around and give yourself a deep ice massage in the biceps and forearms.
- Step out of the tub 5 minutes later and feel WAY BETTER than you did 5 minutes ago.
