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The key to making sure your body fully recovers after a hard training session may be as simple as a cold shower. Over the past few years, athletes have found that taking a 10 minute “contrast” shower…alternating between bouts of hot and cold…post exercise allows them to be ready for the next days’ activities(whether it be competition or another workout) with less soreness and/or stiffness.

Here is what you do: take a 5 minute hot shower, then for the 6th minute switch to cold, focusing on that days recently trained muscle groups. Turn up the hot water for one minute, then repeat hot/cold sequence as many times as you can handle, ending in cold.

The hot water relaxes the muscles and dilates(expands) the blood vessels, increasing circulation. The cold water causes the blood vessels to contract(constrict). The cold also causes your body to slow circulation in the skeletal muscles and helps your heart pump blood through your body.

Alternating between the hot and cold dilates, then contracts the blood vessels causing a “pumping action,” bringing in the fresh oxygenated blood and pushing out metabolic waste(from the stresses caused during your workout). This enhances circulation, which is the key to a faster recovery. “Contrast showers reduce inflammation and pain” says the Director of Sports Science at Boulder CO’s Center for Sports Medicine, Neal Henderson.

I would suggest 3-6 rotations of the hot and cold for optimum recovery.

Yours in Health,

Ryan Miller

p.s. If you know of anyone else who would benefit from this article feel free to fwd it to them. I know they will appreciate it.

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