Cold Water Immersion: A Foe for Immediate Leg Strength Recovery Post Strenuous Activity

Abstract

Recovery post sport activities of demanding nature has become a matter of great concern in present days. To add information in the knowledge bank regarding the rate and trend in lower limbs tiredness recovery due to cold water immersion (CWI) after strenuous workout present research in a highly controlled manner was conducted. Ten participants of equal caliber were selected purposively for the experiment. They ran at Target Heart Rate Zone of 80%-90% of their Maximum Heart Rate for 20 minutes, and had a session of idle CWI (20?C) post activity for 30 minutes. Isometric Leg Strength Test and Sergeant Jump Test were conducted pre activity, post activity and post CWI for availing data. Descriptive statistics, rANOVA and bonferroni post hoc test were employed using IBM SPSS-17. Level of significance choosen was 0.05. Significant decreased state of post workout readings were observed in both the cases. Further post recovery no improvement in state of lower limbs isometric strength was found, whereas decrease in explosive leg strength was evident. Thus it can be concluded that instead of being friend CWI is a foe for immediate leg strength recovery. In future more research having different and prolonged observation points can be framed to have clear idea on this issue.

Keywords: Sports, Recovery, Cold Water Immersion, Isometric Leg Strength, Explosive Leg Strength.