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Abstract Purpose Uncertainty exists if post-resistance exercise hydrotherapy attenuates chronic inflammatory and hormone responses. The effects of repeated post-resistance exercise water immersion on inflammatory and hormone responses in athletes were investigated. Methods Male, academy Super Rugby players (n = 18, 19. 9 ± 1. 5 y, 1. 85 ± 0. 06 m, 98. 3 ± 10. 7 kg) participated in a 12-week programme divided into 3 × 4-week blocks of post-resistance exercise water immersion (either, no immersion control CON; cold CWI; or hot HWI water immersion), utilising a randomised cross-over pre-post design. Fasted, morning blood measures were collected prior to commencement of first intervention block, and every fourth week thereafter. Linear mixed-effects models were used to analyse main (treatment, time) and interaction effects. Results Repeated CWI (p = 0. 025, g = 0. 05) and HWI (p < 0. 001, g = 0. 62) reduced creatine kinase (CK), compared to CON. HWI decreased (p = 0. 013, g = 0. 59) interleukin (IL) -1ra, compared to CON. HWI increased (p < 0. 001–0. 026, g = 0. 06–0. 17) growth factors (PDGF-BB, IGF-1), compared to CON and CWI. CWI increased (p = 0. 004, g = 0. 46) heat shock protein-72 (HSP-72), compared to HWI. Conclusion Post-resistance exercise CWI or HWI resulted in trivial and moderate reductions in CK, respectively, which may be partly due to hydrostatic effects of water immersion. Post-resistance exercise HWI moderately decreased IL-1ra, which may be associated with post-resistance exercise skeletal muscle inflammation influencing chronic resistance exercise adaptive responses. Following post-resistance exercise water immersion, CWI increased HSP-72 suggesting a thermoregulatory response indicating improved adaptive inflammatory responses to temperature changes, while HWI increased growth factors (PDGF-BB, IGF-1) indicating different systematic signalling pathway activation. Our data supports the continued use of post-resistance exercise water immersion recovery strategies of any temperature during in-season competition phases for improved inflammatory adaptive responses in athletes.
Horgan et al. (Sat,) studied this question.