Are ice baths a waste of time?

[ericdavid]

When something becomes massive and expensive, and everyone says it's the best, that's when you have to wonder if it really is. Thank you for your intellectual honesty.

[Blkbmb]

I've always preferred cold showers. Partly because I 'run hot', also it wakes me the F up in the morning and does help instill discipline.

That's as far as it goes for me. Still gonna do 'em, regardless of hype.

We even have a few at our gym, and I'm not that enthused. People make out like they're the best thing since sliced bread, but I agree with your point; that enthusiasm could be better spent on more quality training or other skills outside of fitness.

[anthonycraig]

I don’t have ice baths, I don’t have hot or warm ones either, just normal cold water.
The same with showers, I have it as cold as possible all year round (in the uk) and I only wear a T-shirt all year round.

[salomonherskowitz]

I don't know about no ice baths but two minutes of a cold shower has ma feeling calm and connected energized like nothing else, and they don't cost nothing.

[Dean-H-Martin]

Love the video and the discussion around the evidence of the topic. Really enjoying your style of detailed educational evidence based videos in a digestible and concise format. Keep these style of videos coming 👍

[ThingsYoudontwanttohear]

I remember cold showers being popular say 20 years ago. Then they disappeared and now ice baths are the next big thing.
I like winter, but I hate cold showers and baths. There is just no need to torture myself imo.

[auliaaliyev]

Thank you, Simon, for the educative video

[dannygibson.meditating]

The mental benefits go way beyond this video. I literally feel high when I get out of the cold water! Every single cel in my body feels activated. A cold water dip in a bin I have filled up wakes me up wayyy more than any coffee ever has. I have more mental toughness to do things I know I should do when my mind is telling me to relax. I also like doing things that everyone else doesn’t want to do and thinks I’m crazy for doing haha! I see what you mean when you talk about muscle and strength and I appreciate this video as I now don’t do it straight after training.

[Cindy-xgyn]

I just have cold showers. It's so much easier.

[coachdraz]

I did the WHM for 60days. It worked for me. I got much more emotional control. Wasn't sick for 2yrs and counting. It doubled my cardoovascualr endurance in kickboxing, running etc. without training for it. It works if it's done properly.

[МиленМаринов-щы]

Thank you, Simon, for the wonderful video! 💯❤👍👏🎯😎🙏

[nekokna]

damn you are awsome! i always thoght the same about having to bath with cold water(when the termostat broke for like a year lol) its the most dumb thing. also doing ballet buuilds more resilience and strenght and etc :D or rythmic gymnastics

[quinnculver]

How come you didn't display a citation when you claimed "it's clearly not true" that smoking is good for endurance? 😉

[darrencooper]

I agree that ice bath are probably totally overrated just like many "new" trendy things. But imo they have their place in teaching you body to handle harsh environmental stimuli - just like sauna. At least until in a few 100s or 1000s years our bodies are not made to be always comfortable. Also, cooling my body down, helps me fall asleep tremendoulsy. Yes, your body tries to warm up again after, but not to the same extend as you have been before. Also you have not discusses the benefits of cold exposure on our immune system.

Still, cold showers are totally sufficient for these purposes.
And the prices for ice bath tubs are totally ridiculous, agreed.

[Shinobi.Alexander]

Please give us your opinion on Raygun, being that you’re a real breakdancer and from Australia

[tyriqcleo]

I mean you showed Huberman so it's obviously a scam😂

[BerzoyDenis]

You mixed ice bath benefits and muscle buildup. for muscle buildup - you need saunas. iced baths are not for that.

[vati]

Simon what about immunity? Does it help?

[timiland]

Why did you choose Halo Reach?! I need to know!!!!😅

[Ruudwardt]

Fellow calisthenics athlete and fan of Simonster here.
Mr Simon, have you tried this for yourself? The science so far appears to be too weak to give out general recommendations based on it.

The way I look at it: caloric deficit generated is marginal but not insignificant - say one could cool down their peripheral body by 5 deg C, it would take some time depending on body composition and relative skin area in pretty cold water - let's say easy example 100 kg body mass - the periphery would be perhaps 60 kg, while core (vital organs and brain) would be held more or less constant 37 deg C - that would be 300 kcal deficit to bring the temp back up - it would be equivalent to a 30..45 min session of strength training for a 100 kg athlete. Anyone who has performed real cold plunge for any reasonable length of time knows that the limbs and even torso could take hours to reach back normal temperature.
There must be real heat loss and while some people question rules of thermodynamics, they'd have to admit the rules still hold for us puny humans.
This example is simply a exercise of a mechanism and I understand how it could turn out to not matter for outcomes - the cold could simply reduce the metabolic rate to a degree that the overall energy expenditure would not bulge.

There is probably vast range of genetic and adapted variation to how someone responds to heat manipulation.
For example it is recommended to take warm bath, or mild sauna before bed to relax and shift the autonomous nervous system to parasympathetic - to me this is backwards, warm in the evening energizes me, cold soothes.

The other area is energy management - how one's body responds to this caloric hit.
I know some other people would just be shivering and complaining of cold afterwards, being miserable. For these people this is likely not worth the grind.
While in my normal mode I am always hot and any cold I can get is relief to me.

I truly miss the novelty of the sheer shock and fear of death it gave me when I started years back. I am now so adapted that I barely get exited at all.
In my youth I practiced martial arts a lot - this gave me significant mental resilience. The cold shock took it up to an other level. Nothing frightens me. People who feel like they are wimps - try it out.

The proposed dopamine benefit is not in the instant increase - which can also happen due to mental shock and adrenaline release. It is the elevation of baseline. This is significant benefit and if it turns out to be prevalent in a large population, a fantastic tool to increase overall feeling of well being and combat some forms of depression.