Cold Water Immersion

This pilot study investigates the effects of cold-water immersion, traditional sauna use, and their combination on sleep architecture and psychological health in military cadets. The study uses wearable technologies including the Oura Ring to collect objective sleep and physiological data.

In order to optimize sports performance, high-level athletes are required to manage conflicting training objectives, which often result in periods of high-volume training. These athletes need to perform heavy resistance training sessions to promote physiological adaptations, which consequently induce fatigue. Yet, they need to minimize fatigue to perform subsequent high-quality training sessions often within the same day. To support these training endeavours, a high-quality dietary regimen and adequate protein consumption is deemed to be an essential component of an athlete's recovery plan, as it has been shown to support muscle recovery and reduce muscle inflammation following exercise. Indeed, current sports nutrition recommendations advocate for the consumption of dietary protein and carbohydrate after exercise to promote tissue repair and replenish muscle energy stores (glycogen). Additionally, previous research has shown how water immersion therapies post-exercise may alleviate fatigue and restore performance. However, little is known about how different temperatures, as well as timing of cold-water immersion can support performance recovery in a population of athletes adhering to contemporary post-exercise nutrition recommendations. The objective of this project is to investigate the effects of timing of cold-water immersion relative to exercise on performance recovery within the same day, as well as to investigate whether cold water immersion augments blood amino acid concentrations after exercise and protein intake.