After excercice shower: Hot or Cold?

Takeing the shower after getting home, I've always wondered whats better for muscle recovery, steaming hot or freezing cold showers?

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Cold. Especially after a hard work out. Hard workouts can do minor damage to muscle tissue which causes minor bleeding. Cold should lessen this bleeding aiding the recovery process.
Fully submersing your legs in cold even icy water is better still.

I don't do this BTW but a guy I know who is a bit of a gun (compared to me anyway)swears by it

The best thing to do is submerse the body parts you have used in ICE cold water.

When you exercise lactic acid and muscle degradation products build up in the tissues. If these aren't removed then they can lead to the soreness you feel the next day and delay healing. This is why a warm down after a workout is so important as the continuous blood flow to the muscles allows the products to be cleared without them being replaced by new toxins.

The theory behind the ice bath is this
The ice cold water causes vasoconstriction (closing of the blood vessels) in the extremities (legs in this case) as the body shuts off blood supply to conserve core temperature. When you leave the bath the vessels in your legs vasodilate causing blood to rush into your legs. This flushes out all the toxins your muscles have accumulated in a far more efficient manner than your body can alone.

You should limit the bath to 10 minutes as no benefit is gained past this point and it actually becomes counter-productive.

Another method is alternating your shower between hot and cold every minute or so as this works along the same principles but it is not as effective as the ice bath.

I agree but I beleive in using the internal cooling method whereby I immerse my insides in cold beer.The colder the better.

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Dope,when training and talent just aren't enough.

I think I need to have a discussion with certain group members about them showering before riding. On Saturday someone did not and drafting this particular person was very unpleasant.

I suppose the one incentive was to ride a little harder and stay in the front of the paceline or group to be upwind of the aroma.

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Just tell her she needs a bath.

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Dope,when training and talent just aren't enough.

Contrast Bathing is more effective than cold alone. It creates a pump of vaso-constriction/vaso-dilation. flushing the tissue with nutrient dense blood at a more rapid rate.

Try this in order-
3min.cold/2min.warm/ 2min.cold/2min.warm/2min.cold/2min.warm/3min.cold

Always begin and end with 3min. cold.

cold shower only to lower your body temp, after that.... compression socks will help with keeping the blood moving