Abstract
For years, athletes and coaches have been looking for new strategies to optimize post-exercise recovery; it has recently been suggested that combining several methods might be a great option. This study therefore aimed to investigate the efficacy of contrast water therapy (CWT) used alone or associated with pedaling to recover from exhaustive exercise. After high-intensity intermittent exercise, 33 participants underwent 30 min of either (i) passive rest (PASSIVE), (ii) CWT with pedaling while in water (COMB) or (iii) classic CWT (CWT). Blood lactate concentration, countermovement jump height and perceived exhaustion were recorded before exercise, immediately after, after recovery interventions and after an additional 30 min of passive rest. Blood lactate concentration returned to initial values after 30 min of COMB (5.9 mmol/L), whereas in the other conditions even 60 min was not enough (10.2 and 9.6 mmol/L for PASSIVE and CWT, respectively, p < 0.05). Jump height was close to initial values after 30 min of CWT (37.3 cm), whereas values were still depressed after 60 min in the PASSIVE (36.0 cm) and COMB (35.7 cm) conditions (p < 0.05). Perceived exertion was still high for all conditions after 60 min. The present results are in favor of the utilization of CWT after exhaustive exercise, but the modality has to be chosen depending on what comes next (subsequent exercise scheduled in the following hours or further away).
Highlights
A common issue confronting high-level athletes is the great amount of exercise they must undertake and the limited time available for recovery [1]
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of contrast water immersion used alone or combined with active recovery, as compared with passive recovery, on blood lactate concentration, jump performance and perceived exertion
We hypothesized that light pedaling added to contrast water therapy (CWT) would maximize the effects of recovery after exhaustive exercise
Summary
A common issue confronting high-level athletes is the great amount of exercise (training, competition) they must undertake and the limited time available for recovery [1] This may lead to fatigue accumulation as the season progresses and cause symptoms of overreaching, such as exhaustion, resulting in performance decreases [1]. For these reasons, finding strategies to optimize recovery and accelerate performance restoration is a big challenge to which various interventions have been proposed, with mitigated results [2,3,4,5]. The alternation of vasodilatation and vasoconstriction of the blood vessels due to temperature changes [9]
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