Is Cryotherapy Worthy of Your Recovery Ritual?
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To tame inflammation, reduce soreness, and get ready for your next ride, you might turn to certain recovery methods like massage, contrast therapy, or an ice bath. And if you’re a fan of that last one, you might have heard of another recovery tactic that involves freezing temperatures—that is, cryotherapy.
In a cryotherapy session, your whole body (typically, everything except your head) gets exposed to air that has been cooled with liquid nitrogen. The temperature in which you surround your body ranges from negative 200 to negative 300 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, though it can sometimes go a little lower.
If you’re already shivering, don’t worry, these sessions typically last only two to four minutes.
To figure out whether this recovery practice is for you, here’s what to know about cryotherapy, including benefits, downsides, and what to expect from the freeze.
What is cryotherapy?
An umbrella term for using cold for therapeutic purposes, according to the European Journal of Applied Physiology, you can find cryotherapy in different forms, with whole-body and partial-body being the most common.
Whole-body cryotherapy involves sitting or standing in a totally enclosed chamber (known as a cryochamber) and exposing the entire body to freezing temperatures, often including the head. During partial-body cryotherapy, you place only the torso and legs in the cryochamber—the head is above the enclosure at room temperature.
“Most people feel a bit of a tingly sensation during the treatment,” Clifford Stark, DO, program director for the Sports Medicine Fellowship at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra University and member of the American Osteopathic Association tells Bicycling. Your skin temperature returns to normal within minutes of leaving the chamber, he adds.
What are the benefits of cryotherapy?
Blasting your body with intense bursts of cold may seem, well, extreme, but some research suggests it may have benefits.
When 12 college runners tried cold-water immersion (soaking in cold water), contrast-water therapy (alternating between hot and cold temperatures), whole-body cryotherapy, and no cryotherapy (the control method), researchers concluded that whole-body cryotherapy was the most effective at reducing muscle damage and inflammation, as well as improving subjective sleep quality, according to a 2022 paper published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
A systematic review and meta-analysis, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine in 2022, also found that whole-body and partial-body cryotherapy showed similar effects on reducing soreness, as well as markers of muscle damage. However, researchers point out that because the studies on cryotherapy have only involved a small number of participants and used limited study designs, we need more research to confirm the results.
The mechanisms behind cryotherapy come down to blood flow. When you get into the cold chamber, your blood vessels constrict, leading to a reduction in swelling and inflammation, which is helpful after intense exercise, Stark explains.
Because exercise creates microscopic tears in your muscle fibers, your body responds by sending blood and nutrients to the area. This process is accompanied by inflammation and soreness. By easing the inflammation, cryotherapy may help numb muscle soreness and speed recovery, adds Christopher Tangen, DO, osteopathic physician specialist in sports medicine and associate medical team physician for the Cleveland Browns.
Cryotherapy may be especially helpful for cyclists with painful conditions such as arthritis, migraines, and fibromyalgia, Stark adds. In addition to lowering inflammation—a hallmark of many pain conditions—cryotherapy may work by putting the brakes on pain signals, per a 2021 review in Pain and Therapy.
Are there any risks of cryotherapy?
Intense cold does carry some risks. The most frequently reported adverse effects were skin burns and itching, according to a 2023 Journal of Osteopathic Medicine study. Other risks include frostbite, eye injury, and hypothermia.
In addition, the liquid nitrogen in cryochambers may reduce oxygen in the surrounding air. This can lead to hypoxia or oxygen deficiency, causing loss of consciousness, the FDA warns.
Moreover, brief bouts of freezing temperatures can be dangerous for certain populations. In particular, people with heart, lung, or circulation issues; those with cold allergies (some people get rashes when exposed to the cold); and people with damaged nerves in the hands and feet. These groups shouldn’t try cryotherapy, Stark says. In fact, it’s always smart to chat with your doctor before trying something like cryotherapy.
While not a risk, cryotherapy does have limitations in regards to the science-backed benefits—mainly that large and long-term studies are limited, with evidence of its effects often being considered “weak” by researchers, who also suggest it being a supplement to your intentional recovery routine.
Finally, some evidence also suggests that when you do cryotherapy matters. Ideally, you want to hop into a chamber within the first few hours after a workout. If that’s not possible for you, it may not be worth it.
What about heat therapy for soreness?
Many athletes turn to heat when they have sore muscles but, in general, says Stark, cold therapy is more appropriate than heat in the setting of an inflammatory response. Heat, on the other hand, can be helpful for more chronic conditions, to help bring blood flow to the area and loosen the tissues. Some athletes also alternate between hot and cold application, a.k.a. contrast therapy, which may help move fluids in and out of the involved area.
In the end, whether you choose hot or cold may come down to preference and accessibility. Heat therapy will probably be more relaxing, say the experts, although it has many of the same precautions as cryotherapy, in that it’s probably not safe for people with heart conditions.
What should you know before you try cryotherapy?
If you’re interested in using cryotherapy to help your muscles recover from training, note that less is more. It’s possible that repetitive cryotherapy treatments dilute training adaptations, likely because you need some inflammation for your muscles to grow bigger and get stronger.
In the short-term, while cryotherapy can help you feel better after a tough workout or race, some experts have questioned whether it also limits the gains made from intense exercise. A 2022 Frontiers in Sports and Active Living study found few differences between adaptations in athletes who did two weekly whole-body cryotherapy sessions during a six-week strength and endurance program and athletes who didn’t do the cryo sessions. However, the cryotherapy group didn’t see improvements in power, whereas the non-cryo group did.
Therefore, it may be best to limit your cryotherapy sessions to times when you need to bounce back fast, such as the weeks leading up to a race or competition, or when you have multiple intense workouts on the schedule.
You can get cryotherapy at many wellness centers, physical therapy clinics, and fitness centers. But if you don’t have access to a session near your home, you can also ice aching muscles or try an ice bath.
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