What’s cooler than being cool? ICE COLD! CrossFit Health has partnered with Ice Barrel and Penguin Chillers for a cold-therapy challenge this February. Cold-water therapy has been catching a lot of attention lately with claims that it can increase metabolism, build resiliency, and improve energy, focus, mood, and recovery. So we’re going to put it to the test. Starting Feb. 1, members of the CrossFit Health team will be taking the plunge on a regular basis for the entire month — and we want you to jump in with us.
- The water should be 60 degrees Fahrenheit or less.
- Accumulate 12-15 minutes per week for four weeks.
- Determine your purpose and track your results.
- Follow along from home and tag CrossFit Health on Instagram with your experience and results.
If you don’t have a cold-therapy unit, you can always jump in a cold shower, lake, ocean, or pool. You can also check out the generous offers our partners have provided the CrossFit community.
Some tips from our partners:
“Focus on your breathing before and during your ice bath. This is an important step in activating your parasympathetic nervous system. Breathe in slowly through your nose and exhale out slowly. We like to practice a breathing technique used by the Navy SEALs called ‘box breathing’ before entering the barrel. Breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold your breath for four seconds, exhale out for four seconds, and hold again for four seconds. Repeat this three times before you get in the Ice Barrel and it will be much easier to control your breath during your ice bath. *Pro tip: Fully exhale your lungs as you are first entering the water, this will allow you to take a deeper breath once you’re fully submerged.
“Submerge your entire body up to your neck. Exposing the neck and thyroid gland to cold is important in regulating your body temperature and will help your body better adapt to the cold. This also creates a more dramatic hormonal response, ensuring you get the most health benefits for your body.
“We recommend staying fully-submerged in the ice bath for two to 10 minutes, depending on how your body responds to the cold. For those just starting out, try shorter dips and build up to longer ones as you get more comfortable. As always, listen to your body and don’t push past what you’re comfortable with. It’s better to build resistance slowly over time.
“The more you expose yourself to cold temperatures, the more you’ll need to increase the stimulus (like weight training in the gym). Here are a few ways to do this, so you can continue to maximize the health benefits you receive from your ice baths:
- Increase body movement in the ice bath (move your arms and legs to break the thermal layer or briefly dunk your head underwater).
- Increase the amount of time in the ice bath (two to 10 minutes is recommended, but listen to your body for what feels tolerable).
- Decrease the water temperature (safely).”
Mark you calendars and get ready to take the plunge!
Comments on You're Invited to Join the Ice Barrel Challenge
I recently added the Warrior Will Power Chiller to my recovery routine and am thoroughly impressed. It was easy to set up, and I've been using it daily with great results. The temperature is consistent, perfect for cold plunges after intense workouts, significantly speeding up my recovery time.
The build quality is robust, promising longevity and prompt and helpful customer service. I highly recommend it to anyone serious about fitness recovery!
you can check them out here: https://warriorwillpower.com/collections/bundles
This ice bath look really cool !
Unfortunately, they didn't deliver at my place (france^^)
If there is French peoples in the community, you can found your ice bath here
when is the best time to do this? in the morning? post-workout? pre-workout?
Man this sounds kind of odd to be honest. Especially the "determine your purpose" part. And there's a big difference between two and ten minutes. Also, what specifically about the water is it that makes it beneficial? What if it's just exposure to the cold, in general, that provides a benefit? We spend so much time in heated buildings with cozy blankets it makes sense that our bodies need to be cold sometimes as a stimulus to drive good adaptations. I'd be curious to see what would results would come from a group that did this challenge vs. a group that did a 10-minute walk in the cold every day for a month, or do their daily WODs outside, or something like that.
Reading all the Magic of CrossFit stuff lately has me looking at this through a lens of measurable, observable, and repeatable. And there seems to be a lot of variables here that would make this difficult to draw conclusions from. Unless the goal is to promote cold therapy products.
Actually this challenge is great and makes perfect sense. So first, determine your purpose…. There are a lot of reasons to perform cold exposure. It helps improve immunity, hormone balance, thermogenesis, decrease
inflammation, increases beige fat
therefor mitochondria, and newer studies coming out on the benefits with several aspects of mental health. So they’re encouraging you during this process to figure out why you’re doing the cold exposure. It could be singular or multifaceted, but it’s important for a person to know what they’re getting out of it.
to your second point people with different experience with this will have different tolerances. Minimum effective dose has been shown to be at least two minutes. But for someone who has been doing it for some time and has become cold adapted they may need longer exposure in order to achieve the benefits they’re seeking. It also wouldn’t be safe for someone just starting out to try to push it to that 10 minute mark. In fact they may only be able to do 30 seconds to begin with and that’s ok…. Over time they’ll be able to push longer.
Lastly, you can achieve the same effect by walking outside with minimal clothing but you’ll have to be there for a longer period of time. Water has a greater capability of extracting heat from the body than air does. Also with longer periods required to get the same effects you run a higher risk of frostbite to extremities.
If you’d like to know more my suggestion is to look up Andrew Huberman and check out some of his podcasts on cold exposure. He has a lot of great information and starting there can likely lead to others such as Peter
Attia and many others who are trying to educate on the various ways to improve health (not just with cold exposure either! Truly eye opening information in all of their podcasts!!)
I'm definitely out of my league when talking about most science stuff... this included. And my own anecdotal experience tells me that cold seems to make things slow down for my body (healing, movement, desire to do anything). It just seems like a statement like "It helps improve immunity, hormone balance, thermogenesis, decrease inflammation, increases beige fat therefor mitochondria, and newer studies coming out on the benefits with several aspects of mental health" is kind of tricky because you could attach a lot of things to CrossFit and still get those same improvements.
The different tolerances part makes sense, and I like that it's a scalable challenge. Wouldn't that make it much harder to draw conclusions from the challenge though? Or is that not the goal of this?
I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking in your last question? What would make it harder to draw conclusions?
I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking in your last question? What would make it harder to draw conclusions?
This is great. I really think you need to post more safety guidelines around cold plunging though.
Yes! It’s great, I’ve been doing ice bath for well over a year now, cold showers every morning! My body and my mind are craving both! I have to challenge my self in the ice bath tho, haven’t dunk my head under yet…
Crossfit Pyro is 100% in. I personally been doing it for a year almost daily and it changed my life. Got diagnosed with advanced arthritis in my left hip, I was stuck with only one option, hip replacement. I could barely walk and was limping around. 15yrs of firefighting in a busy downtown hall does that to you. The ice bath got my inflammation low enough so I could start stretching again and regain some mobility. Now, Im almost back to normal but still a long way to go. Ill be sharing this challenge with our community and go all in. This is awesome!!
Curious to know where you’re located and “how” you do your daily “plunge.”
Hi David, I am Dave, from the Netherlands… I just started with the cold plunges. I am diagnosed with the same. Also left side. Really happy to see your comment. I hope it works the same for me. If you have any further tips….. Please let me know…
I just got done coming up with a make shift cold tub. Perfect timing!
You're Invited to Join the Ice Barrel Challenge
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