It’s Olympic season and it’s very likely that you have seen or will see a lot of Olympians using ice baths straight after their events have finished. But why do they feel the need to subject their bodies to this torture? Being in the business of baths ourselves, we were quite interested to find out why, so we’ve done a little bit of research into the subject and found out some interesting facts to share with you. Now we’re no scientists, so we’ve tried to present it in as simple a way as possible – think of this as ‘science for dummies’ if you will…

It’s Olympic season and it’s very likely that you have seen or will see a lot of Olympians using ice baths straight after their events have finished. But why do they feel the need to subject their bodies to this torture? Being in the business of baths ourselves, we were quite interested to find out why, so we’ve done a little bit of research into the subject and found out some interesting facts to share with you. Now we’re no scientists, so we’ve tried to present it in as simple a way as possible –  think of this as ‘science for dummies’ if you will…

How cold are ice baths?

Contrary to what you might think, an ice bath is not actually at freezing temperature. Usually they are around 10-12 degrees Celsius (still very cold!). After about 10 minutes at this temperature, your body temperature can drop to potentially dangerous levels, so most people do not stay in an ice bath longer than this, only lingering long enough to reap the benefits. However some people even say that ice baths have no physical benefits to the human body and that it is simply a placebo effect – tricking our brains into believing we feel better.

Here’s champion weightlifter Karyn Marshall and daredevil Will ‘The Iceman’ Hof just chilling in their ice baths (see what we did there?).

Andy Murray and Jessica Ennis-Hill are among a host of other top athletes who use ice baths as part of their training.

How do ice baths help athletes?

Athletes don’t just jump into ice baths to show how tough they are (although it could well be part of the reason…). The reasoning behind this practice is to speed up the healing time of sore muscles after heavy exercise. When we exercise heavily, we cause little tears in our muscles which then become inflamed – this is the pain that most of us feel after we exercise. You will also get a build up of lactic acid which also intensifies the pain. If we hurt a singular muscle we put an ice pack on it to reduce the pain and swelling: well an ice bath is simply a bigger version of that!

For top athletes, being able to heal fast is especially important. The ice bath activates your nerves which send messages to your brain and tricks it into believing that you are freezing to death! This makes your brain go into panic mode and starts a rapid flow of blood from the sore muscles back to the liver and other major organs where the toxins (such as lactic acid) can be removed and the muscles are no longer inflamed. The result is a much faster muscle recovery than would happen at the body’s normal temperature. As well as taking away toxins from your muscles, some ice baths feature a whirlpool system that massages sore muscles by circulating the cold water and stimulating your blood circulation.

But do they work?

Some people say that ice baths actually have no physical benefits to the human body and that using one simply causes a placebo effect – tricking our brains into believing we feel better when in fact there has been no physical difference.

So the jury is still seems to be out on ice baths!

Bathshop321 has a more comfortable alternative…

Normal whirlpool baths actually give you many of the same benefits as an ice bath – but with less of the limb numbing pain! Our whirlpool baths feature 6, 8 or 12 jets and stimulate your circulation without increasing your heart rate. This results in an improvement in skin tone and a reduction of stress hormones in the blood system. The pressure of the jets help your body to release endorphins, the same feel-good chemicals that are released during exercise or a massage!

We stock plenty of whirlpool baths at amazing prices, like the ones seen below. All whirlpool baths come with a 6 jet system as standard, but you have the option to upgrade to 8 or 12 jets if you want, for a small additional cost. Prices start from as little as £289!

So instead of subjecting yourself to the pain of an ice bath and looking like this…

You can soak in a nice, warm whirlpool bath and look like this…

Smug in the knowledge that you have grabbed yourself an absolute bargain! Who needs an Olympic medal anyway?

If a Whirlpool bath isn’t up your street then why not check out our corner bath and shower bath ranges!

Good luck Team GB!

*Look out for the Union Jack symbol on our products – this shows which of our items were manufactured right here in Britain.