Benefits of an ice bath: does it help or hurt muscle growth?

The short answer

• 3×

  More thigh muscle gained in 12 weeks with easy cycling after lifting than with a cold dip (309 g vs 103 g)

• 8

  Studies in a 2024 review. Together they suggest a cold dip after lifting cuts muscle growth

• 52

  Studies in a 2022 review. A cold dip after hard exercise eased soreness the next day

• 11–15min

  Time in water at 11–15 °C that eased soreness best, in a review of 9 trials

Key findingIf your goal is bigger, stronger muscles, skip the ice bath after lifting. Save it for times when you need to feel fresh fast, such as games on back-to-back days.

What does an ice bath do?

An ice bath, or cold plunge, means sitting in cold water up to your waist or chest. In the lifting studies, people sat in water at 10–15 °C (50–59 °F) for 10–20 minutes. Some people take cold showers instead.

The cold works fast. It narrows blood vessels and cools your muscles. It also slows nerve signals, which dulls pain for a while. In the first minutes, a stress hormone called noradrenaline rises, and so does blood pressure. Very cold water can make you breathe fast and hard.

People take ice baths to feel less sore and more ready for the next session. Some also hope for less stress or fewer colds. Here is what studies show for each.

Do ice baths hurt muscle growth?

In a key trial, 21 young men who already lifted weights trained their legs twice a week for 12 weeks. After each session, about half of them sat in 10 °C water up to the waist for 10 minutes. The others cycled gently for 10 minutes. The two groups were set by chance.

Strength gains were smaller too. The cold-water group added 133 kg to their best leg press, against 201 kg for the cycling group. On the knee extension machine, they added about 18 kg, against 34 kg.

A second test showed why this may happen. After one workout, muscle samples taken after easy cycling showed more muscle stem cells and stronger building signals for up to two days. Cold water seemed to damp both down.

A 2024 review then pooled 8 studies of cold water after strength training. They lasted 4–12 weeks, and almost everyone in them was a young man. Lifting alone gave a small amount of muscle growth. Lifting plus cold water gave less, and perhaps none.

The researchers put the chance that cold water cut growth at about 96%. The chance that it cut growth by at least a small amount was about 83%. So some harm is likely, but its size is unclear. It made no clear difference whether people were new to lifting or trained.

One catch: every study used cold water within 15 minutes of training, after every session. Nobody knows yet whether a dip hours later, or now and then, has the same effect. To keep gaining, the basics still matter most. See progressive overload.

Benefits of an ice bath for soreness and recovery

This is where ice baths do help, a little. A 2018 review pooled 99 studies of recovery methods after one hard session. Most methods eased soreness, but massage helped most.

Cold water came in the middle. A 2022 review agreed. It pooled 52 studies that compared a cold dip with sitting still after one hard workout. A day after hard, interval-type exercise, people who had a cold dip:

• Felt less sore and more recovered.
• Got their power back a little faster, in tests such as jumps and sprints.
• Had lower blood levels of a marker of muscle damage.

But cold water didn’t help strength come back faster. And most of the studies tested only men.

The soreness benefit is real but small. In a review of 9 trials, cold water cut soreness by about 0.3 points on a 0–10 scale, compared with resting.

How long should you stay in an ice bath?

That review of 9 trials, from 2016, compared different times and temperatures. Dips of 11–15 minutes in water at 11–15 °C eased soreness best. Colder water, at 10 °C or below, showed no clear benefit. The one study that used very cold water (5 °C) for 20 minutes left people more sore than resting did.

The 2022 review found that shorter dips, about 12 minutes rather than 14–15, went with better endurance the next day. So longer is not better. The best temperature is less clear. One review favoured 11–15 °C. The other linked colder water with a bigger drop in the muscle-damage marker.

Are ice baths good for you?

Outside sport, the evidence is thin. A 2025 review pooled 11 trials of cold showers, ice baths and cold plunges in 3,177 healthy adults. It found:

• Stress: lower 12 hours later, but not right after, or a day or two later.
• Inflammation: blood markers of inflammation rose right after a cold dip, and were still up an hour later.
• Immune system: no change in immune markers in the hour after.
• Days off sick: in one large trial, adults took a 30–90 second cold shower every day for a month. They had 29% fewer days off sick, but they weren’t ill for fewer days.
• Sleep and mood: sleep was better in one small study of 20 men. Mood didn’t change.

All the women in the review came from that one shower trial. The other 10 trials studied only men, and most tested just one dip. So we know little about regular cold plunges.

Claims and evidence

• ClaimAn ice bath after every workout helps you gain more.

  EvidenceThe opposite seems true for strength training. In a 12-week trial, men who used cold water after leg workouts gained a third as much thigh muscle as those who cycled gently.

• ClaimThe colder and longer, the better.

  EvidenceNo. In one review, 11–15 minutes worked best for soreness, and one study of 20 minutes at 5 °C left people more sore than resting.

• ClaimIce baths boost your immune system.

  EvidenceThis hasn’t been shown. Immune markers didn’t change in the hour after a cold dip. Daily cold showers went with fewer days off sick, but not fewer days ill.

• ClaimIce baths are the best way to recover.

  EvidenceFor soreness after one hard session, massage had a much bigger effect. Easy exercise and compression clothing also did better than cold water.

What this means for you

What the research can’t tell you yet

• Mostly young men. Almost every lifting study, and most soreness studies, tested young men.
• Few, small studies. The muscle-growth review had 8 studies, and none was rated good quality.
• Timing. We don’t know if a dip hours after lifting, or on rest days, also slows gains.
• Belief. People always knew if they were in cold water, so expecting to feel better may explain part of the benefit.
• Long-term health. There are no long trials of regular cold plunges for heart health, weight or mood. For heat, there are long studies of saunas, but they show links, not proof: see sauna benefits.

How Bodyvault uses this research

Bodyvault doesn’t track ice baths or cold plunges, and it never suggests them. Your morning check-in can record how sore you feel. In Bodyvault Pro, the check-in is a small part (7%) of your Readiness score, next to sleep and heart data.

General information about fitness and nutrition, not medical advice. If you have a health condition, are pregnant or take medication, talk to your doctor before changing your diet or training.