Cold-water immersion blunts and delays increases in circulating testosterone and cytokines post-resistance exercise. - GreenMedInfo Summary
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Cold-water immersion blunts and delays increases in circulating testosterone and cytokines post-resistance exercise.
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2019 Aug ;119(8):1901-1907. Epub 2019 Jun 20. PMID: 31222379
Jacob E Earp
INTRODUCTION: Cold-water immersion (CWI) is often used to promote recovery by reducing exercise-induced muscle damage, soreness, and inflammation. However, recent reports have cautioned that CWI may attenuate the adaptive response to resistance training.
PURPOSE: To determine the effect of post resistance-exercise CWI on circulating free testosterone (T) and cytokine (IL-6 and TNF-α) response.
METHODS: Using a randomized and counterbalanced repeated-measures design, 11 resistance-trained men completed two workouts (6 sets of 10 repetitions of back squats at 80% of maximum load) a week apart after which they took part in either 15 min of CWI (15 °C) or passive recovery. T, IL-6, and TNFαwere measured in blood samples taken before (PRE) and 5 (5POST), 15 (15POST), 30 (30POST), and 60 (60POST) min post-exercise and compared between treatments and over time.
RESULTS: For T, a significant interaction effect of condition over time (p = 0.030) as well as greater relative concentrations of T in CON (Δ9.2%) than CWI (Δ-0.5%, p = 0.049) at 30POST were observed. In addition, at 60POST, T dropped below PRE values in CWI (Δ-10.4%, p = 0.028) but not in CON (Δ-1.6%, p = 0.850). A suppressed cytokine response was observed after CWI in IL-6 at 30POST (CWI:Δ4.9%, CON:Δ47.5%, p = 0.041) and TNFαat 15POST (CWI:Δ5.3%, CON:Δ17.0%, p = 0.022).
CONCLUSIONS: CWI blunted the T and cytokine response after a bout of resistance exercise. These results indicate that CWI results in an altered anabolic response and may help to explain the previous observation of attenuated hypertrophy when CWI is used after resistance exercise.
