A recent study has shown that a cold bath after exercise may be an effective way to prevent sore muscles. Such baths are popular among athletes as a means of reducing sore, swollen, or stiff muscles.
Researchers attempted to determine whether the technique works by analyzing 17 small trials with a total of 366 volunteers. Cold water baths proved to be much more effective than resting at helping sore muscles.
According to Medical News Today:
“It is difficult for researchers to determine exactly how much cold water immersion helps sore muscles, because of the wide variety of different temperatures, exercise, and timing that the different studies used. Also, the amount of evidence that there are possible side effects to the cold baths was inconclusive, due to the fact that most of the studies did not report any bad side effects.”