Cold water plunge: it makes you worse

Training
42

Sometimes science can’t answer questions. My story:

  • went for a long bike ride on a Saturday in early 2023
  • after the ride I was sore
  • wife and I went to Costco
  • tried a $9000 chair, first chair I’ve ever tried that massaged glutes and hamstrings
  • WOW, in just 15 minutes I went from stiff and sore to limber and spry
  • so I’m impressed I called my wife over even though Costco had closed 5 minutes ago
  • her response “WOW, forget taking an expensive trip to Europe this year, lets buy one of these”
  • we did research and drove 90 minutes to Bay Area to demo all the top models
  • negotiated a deal
  • spent a ridiculous sum of money, but compared to what my mom pays for massage the chair has already paid off
  • LOL, final note, this year we will go to Europe

Nowadays I get 3-4 whole body massages a week, 20 minutes each, it’s like getting a professional massage. Hands, forearms, lats, back, glutes, hamstrings, calves, and feet. Has improved relaxation and reduced soreness. Performance? Maybe, if you consider I sleep more soundly after getting into the chair before bed. But I would rephrase and say we are a hell of a lot happier. We both lift weights, and between the two straddle the 6 decade mark, so in addition to soreness from lifting we are at that age where we also wake up to mystery aches and pains.

Empirical evidence > science

3 Likes
43

Great point, although I am not sure how much inflammation you would have just after the start and onwards into a taper? The taper itself takes care of that???

1 Like
45

The earth is flat… I’ve seen it. Spirit levels prove it.

46

Because I come from the exact or hard sciences (math, physics, engineering), where there is extremely high predictive power, carried out in repeatable experiments, with precise measurements and agreement.

Empirical evidence often precedes the science. In sports science studies, it is pretty common to see interventions with some non-responders and athletes that decline rather than improve. However some studies do provide a compass, but “your mileage may vary” as they say.

Of course there are a good collection of first principles, however this is a branch of science with less predictive power and fuzziness which gets more into discussing the probability of an intervention. In other words, a fancy way of saying “it depends.” Which is perfectly fine.