At Recovery Lab of Rancho Cucamonga, we know you need every tool you can get to help you reach and stay at the top of your game, which is why we’d like to tell you how great cryotherapy is for athletes like you.
A Word On What Cryotherapy Is
Cryotherapy, at least the whole-body cryotherapy we’re talking about here, is basically putting your whole body in a super cold place to trigger your cells in beneficial ways. This is done in a cold chamber similar to a tanning bed, only it’s upright and wide open at the top for your head and has other differences.
The Two Main Areas Cryotherapy Benefits Athletes
While cryotherapy benefits many people for many reasons, let’s look at how it helps athletes specifically.
Though there are many indirect ways cryotherapy lends a hand, the two more direct areas it helps are with increased levels of endurance and faster recovery.
In the first case, growing research shows how exposure to coldness actually increases the growth of the mitochondria of your cells, which is the part of your cell directly responsible for keeping things moving in such a way that you won’t get fatigued as quickly.
This also hastens recovery, not to mention the reduced inflammation you get from the cold – similar to the reduced swelling you’d get from using R.I.C.E. therapy – also gives you a faster recovery time.
All this adds up to you being able to get back to working out sooner after having worked out longer, which will aid you in achieving whatever your athletic goals are.
The Best Time For Athletes To Use Cryotherapy
The best time for cryotherapy partially depends on what your goal is.
For example, if your athletic goal happens to be strength training, you probably shouldn’t use it directly after a workout. You see, cryotherapy reduces your inflammation, which sounds great, but a small amount of inflammation is part of what causes muscle growth. So, you don’t want to completely get rid of inflammation in this situation.
Instead, you’d be best served by having a cryotherapy session at least an hour or two after working out. This time should allow the inflammation to do what you want while still helping you recover faster, which too much inflammation is sure to prevent.
Otherwise, if you’re struggling with soreness or recovering from an injury, you should consider using this tool of Recovery Lab, as it’ll help you get back to full strength faster so you don’t miss any milestones in reaching your goal.
