From cold water swimming to ice baths, deliberately freezing yourself is considered a panacea for everything from menopausal symptoms to arthritis, headaches and immune conditions.
And for athletes, ice is widely used to aid recovery after exercise. But now researchers say the clinical benefits of ice therapy are not evidence-based and its popularity is bad for the environment.
With the Paris Olympics starting on Friday, academics from France, Qatar, India and Switzerland in a reductionpublished in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, that the use of ice at the summer Olympics has reached “extraordinary levels” despite the lack of proven effectiveness.
The amount of energy and water required to produce, store and transport the ice is not good for the planet, to say nothing of its cost, they added.
While about 22 tons of ice for medical purposes were delivered to the competition venues of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and another 42 tons were provided in the Olympic Village, the requirement for the 2024 Paris Olympics significantly exceeds these figures, the academics noted.
Initial estimates were for 1,624 tonnes of ice – at a cost of €2.5 million – but after no independent vendors could meet the public tender, the Paris Games revised its estimate to 650 tonnes (450 for the Olympics and 200 for the Paralympics). said the newspaper.
Cold water immersion accounted for around 10% of treatments prescribed by physiotherapists at the Olympic polyclinics in Athens 2004 and London 2012, rising to 44% by Rio 2016. Of the immersions, 98% were for recovery purposes with the remainder treated injuries.
While cold water immersion is good for treating heat exhaustion, after exercise in hot temperatures and for muscle soreness, it should not be used for recovery between consecutive periods of high-intensity training, or for immediate or long-term recovery after resistance exercise.
“Ice use at the Summer Olympics reached extraordinary levels, potentially stressing local and regional resources,” the academics concluded. “When planning for the provision of ice, organizers should strive to minimize the use of non-evidence-based practices and promote better sustainability. Ice must remain available for certain situations, including acute pain relief, specific recovery needs and management of exertional heat stroke.”
Responding to the findings, Paulina Kloskowska, a doctor of sports and musculoskeletal physiotherapy at King’s College London who often works with elite athletes, said high-level sport had always operated on the “fringes of evidence” to make “marginal gains”. to achieve in performance. , injury prevention or recovery, and that concerns about the overuse of ice were valid.
She said: “There is increasing data emerging that heat therapy is actually better for long-term muscle recovery in such circumstances, and that early and frequent ice and cold therapy improves tissue resilience, the ability to bear loads, or adapt in a healthy way.”
Dr Richard Budgett, the International Olympic Committee’s medical and scientific director, said the study should help ensure that the Games use ice as effectively and as rationally as possible. “In addition, there are alternatives to ice available, including a cooling system with filtered water chilled to 10C, which allows us to significantly reduce energy consumption. We will continue to monitor this aspect closely [for] viable evidence to further reduce the amount of ice used at future Games, in line with best medical practice.”
