Key result
Repeated cold-water immersions lower minute ventilation ~27% during immersion without altering hypoxic exercise responses.
Why the study?
The study sought to assess the effects of repeated cold-water immersions on respiratory, metabolic, and sympathoadrenal responses to graded exercise in hypoxia.
Does repeated short cold-water immersion improve respiratory, metabolic, and sympathoadrenal responses to graded exercise in normobaric hypoxia?
Does repeated short cold-water immersion improve respiratory, metabolic, and sympathoadrenal responses to graded exercise in normobaric hypoxia?
Repeated short cold-water immersions successfully habituate individuals to cold but do not provide metabolic or respiratory adaptations that are beneficial during exercise in normobaric hypoxia.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Cold-water immersion habituates without benefiting hypoxic exercise; leaves open whether longer protocols confer adaptations.
We sought to assess the effects of repeated cold-water immersions (CWI) on respiratory, metabolic, and sympathoadrenal responses to graded exercise in hypoxia. Sixteen (2 female) participants (age: 21.2 ± 1.3 years; body fat: 12.3 ± 7.7%; body surface area 1.87 ± 0.16 m 2 , VO 2peak : 48.7 ± 7.9 mL/kg/min) underwent 6 CWI in 12.0 ± 1.2 °C. Each CWI was 5 min, twice daily, separated by ≥4 h, for three consecutive days, during which metabolic data were collected. The day before and after the repeated CWI intervention, participants ran in normobaric hypoxia (F I O 2 = 0.135) for 4 min at 25%, 40%, 60%, and 75% of their sea level peak oxygen consumption (VO 2peak ). CWI had no effect on VO 2 ( p > 0.05), but reduced the V E (CWI #1: 27.1 ± 17.8 versus CWI #6: 19.9 ± 12.1 L/min) ( p < 0.01), V T (CWI #1: 1.3 ± 0.4 vs CWI #6: 1.1 ± 0.4 L) ( p < 0.01), and V E :VO 2 (CWI #1: 53.5 ± 24.1 vs CWI #6: 41.6 ± 20.5) ( p < 0.01) during subsequent CWI. Further, post exercise plasma epinephrine was lower after CWI compared to before (103.3 ± 43.1; 73.4 ± 34.6 pg/mL) ( p = 0.03), with no change in pre-exercising values (75.4 ± 30.7; 72.5 ± 25.9 pg/mL). While these changes were noteworthy, it is important to acknowledge there were no changes in pulmonary ( V E , V T , and V E :VO 2 ) or metabolic (VO 2 , SmO 2 , and SpO 2 ) variables across multiple hypoxic exercise workloads following repeated CWI. CWI habituated participants to cold water, but this did not lead to adaptations during exercise in normobaric hypoxia.
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Dorsett et al. (2024) studied Healthy recreationally active (n=16). Repeated short cold-water immersions vs. First cold-water immersion (baseline) was evaluated on Minute ventilation (VE) during cold-water immersion (p=<0.01). Repeated short cold-water immersions reduced minute ventilation during subsequent immersions (19.9 vs 27.1 L/min, p<0.01) but did not alter pulmonary or metabolic variables during exercise in hypoxia.
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