The influence of regular post-exercise cold application on exercised muscles with endurance training

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of regular post-exercise cold application on adaptive changes in aerobic capacity of exercised muscles in association with endurance training. Six male subjects performed 25 minutes of bicycle exercise at a workload of 70% of maximal O 2 uptake (V̇O2max) four times a week for four weeks. During this training period, the subjects immersed one leg in cold water (5 ± 1°C) for 2 periods of 20 minutes after every training session, with a 30-minute interval between immersions. Significant increases in performance time, V̇O2max, and ventilation threshold (VT) measured by a two-legged incremental cycle ergometer test (p < 0.01, p < 0.05, p < 0.01, respectively) were observed after the training period. In the one-legged incremental exercise test, although significant increase in performance time was detected for the control side (p < 0.05), no such increase was seen after the training period for the cold application side. Although one-legged V̇O2max did not change significantly on either side after the training period, post-training/pre-training ratio for one-legged V̇O 2max was significantly lower on the cold application side compared with the control side (p < 0.05). Further studies are required in order to confirm and elucidate a possible attenuation of improvement in aerobic capacity with endurance training resulting from the regular post-exercise application of cold.