What you need to know before the big chill
By Kristen De Deyn Kirk
Standing over a horse trough in his backyard, Chuck Conley uses his heel as a pick.
Tap … tap … SPLASH!
He breaks through a thin layer of ice and slides into the water.
“This must be done,” Conley, a Virginia Beach teacher, says about his winter cold-plunging routine. In the morning, he usually plunges for 30 seconds. Sometimes he’ll stay for four minutes.
“You start to crave it,” he insists.
Fourteen years ago, Conley came across the teachings of Wim Hof, a Dutch athlete and motivational speaker known as “The Ice Man.” Conley was impressed when he learned Hof could submerge himself in ice water for two hours and maintain his body temperature. Conley, a year-round paddler, wondered what he could handle. A wobble while paddling can mean a surprise dip into freezing water. He wanted his body—and his mind—to be ready.
“A few months after starting cold plunging,” Conley says, “I was out on a lake and caught a branch with my paddle, turned my K1 [a long, narrow kayak] over, and I came up. I didn’t have the big eyes bulging or take the big gasp of air that you’d expect.”
Instead, the 38-degree water refreshed Conley.
Chill first steps
Understanding your health and your “why” is important if you’re thinking of cold plunging, says Robert Patton, a sport medicine physician with Jordan-Young Institute in Virginia Beach.
“A lot of patients are quite interested in it,” he shared. “They bring it up.”
He wants those whom he treats—from competitive athletes and weekend warriors to geriatric adults with degenerative joint disease—to first understand what a cold plunge does to the body. Then they can determine if they should try it.
When a person submerges in cold water, the body’s peripheral circulation suddenly clamps down, Patton explained. The person increases systemic vascular resistance, which puts pressure on the heart. The resistance also can increase arrhythmias—abnormal rhythms of the heart—and release stress hormones, leading to a temporary spike in blood pressure.
“If your heart is struggling [normally],” Patton said, “then that increase in blood pressure can be dangerous. I recommend consulting with your physician first, just to make sure there’s no underlying abnormalities that might put you at risk.”
Why and when to jump in
Individuals looking to bulk up should consider avoiding cold plunging, Patton cautioned.
“To get muscle hypertrophy [an increase in muscle size], you need to traumatize your muscles,” he said. “You need to create tears and get those chemical messages to tell your body to put down new muscle. If you cold plunge, you minimize the inflammatory response after training, so you actually get less of an inflammatory response, which leads to less muscle growth.”
Patton noted that a bodybuilder could plunge in the morning and train in the afternoon and receive benefits, but he can’t say for sure: Studies on cold plunging are inconsistent. The water temperature, the time of day a plunge occurs, and the length of time vary so much in studies that he is hesitant to draw many absolute conclusions. He limits his recommendations to:
For water temperature, 40 degrees is sufficient.
A cold shower might have the same benefits as a plunge.
Plunge after exercising if you’re hoping to prevent delayed onset muscle soreness. Cryotherapy—a cold air treatment—might be the best option, though.
Plunge in the morning if you’re looking for an overall, psychological wellness benefit.
“I lived in Denmark for five years,” Patton said of his childhood, “and everyone ran down to the lake, regardless of the time of year. You poked holes in the ice to jump in. Immediately afterwards, you definitely get a little bit of euphoria, maybe even some mental clarity. You feel much more awake.”
Kristen De Deyn Kirk
