Author(s): LEE, J., MOON, J., KIM, N., Institution: DAEGU NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION, Country: KOREA, SOUTH, Abstract-ID: 1994

INTRODUCTION:
Cold water immersion (CWI) is drawing attention as a method for maintaining muscle damage and conditioning in athletes. Previous studies have shown that whole-body CWI and lower-body CWI are effective in improving muscle damage and fatigue, respectively. However, there is an insufficient scientific evidence on which to investigate the effect of whole-body and lower-body CWI treatment on MVIC, muscle damage index and muscle mechanical properties. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of whole-body and lower-body cold water immersion (CWI) on eccentric exercise-induced maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC), muscle damage index and mechanical properties.
METHODS:
Twenty seven adult male participants were divided into three treatment groups; whole-body CWI (n=9), lower-body CWI (n=9), and active recovery (n=9). All participants participated in each treatment after eccentric exercise. The participants measured average skin temperature, pain score, MVIC, Tensiomyography (TMG), and blood samples were taken for analysis of creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), lactate concentration.
In this study all data were presented as mean and standard deviation (mean ± SD) and SPSS version 23.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) was used for statistical analysis with a significance level of p<.05. A two-way repeated measure ANOVA used for effect of treatment on skin temperature, pain scale, MVIC, muscle damage index, muscle mechanical properties and lactate concentration. Bonferroni’s method was used for post-hoc test and the statistical effect siza was verified with Cohen’s. The effect size was interpreted as lower than 0.2, median 0.4~0.5, higher than 0.8.
RESULTS:
In the case of MVIC, significant differences were observed at all time points for whole-body and lower-body CWI treatment, as well as active recovery treatment. The pain score after 30 minutes and 48 hours after exercise was significantly lower in the whole-body CWI treatment and the lower-body CWI treatment than in the active recovery treatment, respectively. Compared with active recovery, whole-body and lower-body CWI treatment significantly decreased blood LDH concentration 48 hours post-exercise, respectively. Whole-body and lower-body CWI and active recovery treatments removed significant differences in lactate concentration across all time points. Regarding Dm, both CWI and active recovery treatment exhibited significant decreased at 30 minutes post-exercise compared to rest. Moreover, in the case of CWI treatment, Dm was significantly reduced at 30 minutes after exercise compared than at 48 hours after exercise. As for Tc, significant differences at all time points in both CWI treatment and active recovery treatments.
CONCLUSION:
CWI treatment alone can be effective regardless of water depth for recovering from muscle damage, muscle function, and achieving faster lactate concentration reduction.