How to take an ICE Bath – what are the benefits?

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I’ve just completed the 30 day Caveman cold shower challenge and to celebrate this milestone I took an ICE bath.

Am I mad? Why take an ICE bath?

Benefits of an ICE bath:

  • promotes weight loss by igniting brown adipose tissue (brown fat) into burning white fat
  • accelerates muscle recovery
  • increase sperm production
  • increase libido
  • boost testosterone
  • improve time to fall asleep if taken 1 hour before bed
The technique:
In The 4 Hour Body Tim recommends getting the temperature below 10°C and staying in there for 10-15 minutes. I have done a couple of trial runs with 3kgs, then 5kgs of ice and it was no way near enough to get down to that temp. This time I went all out and put in 14kgs of ICE and the temperature came down to 7°C, a little too cold!! I think 8kgs of ice is most likely about right.

 

  1. Throw in all the ICE
  2. Let it melt almost completely or until sub 10°C
  3. Hop into the bath, squeal in pain/delight
  4. Submerge bottom half for 5 minutes
  5. Submerge top half, including head for the remaining 5 minutes

So how was it?

It was cold, really cold. I was in for 30 seconds and I wanted to get out, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to handle it for the full 10 minutes but I soldiered on, it was a real mental struggle to keep going. On the video you can hear me grunting in pain a bit and also struggling to speak a few times as my brain was freezing up! I had to use a few mental tricks to take my mind and focus elsewhere.

How did I feel afterwards?

Empowered, full of energy, alive.

After the ice bath I had my leaving party in London to go to and for the rest of the evening I was wide awake, full of energy and feeling fantastic. The following day, feeling great also. I’m not sure if I am going to make this one a habit, it was pretty tough to be honest. If I get into training everyday then maybe I will try the ICE bath more often, but I’d do it with 8kg of ice and try keep that temperature around 10°C, 7°C was too cold!

Here’s the video, warning my camera keeps flicking into autofocus and blurs a couple of times, I must work out how to turn that off. Note this is UNCUT and the full length video, I’m flying out to San Francisco tomorrow to begin the 90 Day Challenge and have not had the time to edit it down. Enjoy:

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15 comments
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john1cpn
john1cpn

Hey,  I started to do intermittent ice baths about 50 days ago.  We watched your video first.  My wife has been doing cold showers for about a year.  She learned that from a Kundalini yoga instructor.   Anyway these cold baths are too hard for her.  I love them but I have had a lingering cold  for a few weeks.    I am about to do another cold bath right now.  I keep the temperature at 10 - 12 C.   I suppose I will get it lower in the winter.   

anthonyablackburn
anthonyablackburn

I haven't heard anything about paroxide. I just had straight water/ice in mine, I was mainly going for the muscle recovery effect, if you stick to just water then you will get that effect.

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CavemanKlaus
CavemanKlaus moderator

@anthonyablackburn agree Anthony, I was aiming for the muscle recovery aspect also. Have you made Ice baths a regular thing? I just did it this one time, but now I'm trying to step up my workouts to daily and am pushing hard, pretty sore at the moment and am considering getting back into it on a regular basis. I still have vivid memories of how tough it was though which is putting me off! guess this is a clue for me to do it again to grow that mental toughness!!

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PaulValiulis
PaulValiulis

Gotta get in a lot faster, while singing songs about Collin Vine. Like this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lRvmiJ_mw0

CavemanKlaus
CavemanKlaus moderator like.author.displayName 1 Like

@PaulValiulis Paul that is brilliant and made me laugh! I do cold showers each morning as well and I can identify with this feeling where you have to just laugh and get a little ridiculous to push through it with a big smile on your face at the situation. The cold never really gets any easier. If you think about anything too much the chance of doing it gets less and less so I agree to getting in the bath faster! Just like waking up and getting out of bed. Met Collin at the Quantified Self meetup the other day who was talking about you. Had a look round your website, great stuff really progressive, keep rocking it!

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Dragon Blogger
Dragon Blogger

Cool, I see the conversations from Facebook showed up. I have never taken an ice bath at home but when I lived on the East coast I did go swimming in Long Island ocean for about 10-15 minutes in January when I was a teen and remember how frigid it was. I honestly didn't know there were health benefits to taking ice baths, I just take a cold shower to cool off but nothing reaches the temperature you list here to promote benefits.

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CavemanKlaus
CavemanKlaus moderator

@Dragon Blogger Yes I mainly use for recovery after heavy weight training. Cold showers are also good. I take them every morning and have posted about it here www.cavemanklaus.com/habits/the-30-day-caveman-cold-shower-challenge-building-mental-toughness-and-improving-health/ thanks for the blogging help!

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Rach Monks
Rach Monks

good lord, that looked horrific!! Good work Klaus!

Caveman Klaus
Caveman Klaus

Cheers James am flying out in a few hours! am down to a suitcase and a backpack for 3 months, it's going to be an adventure of growth!

James Richardson
James Richardson

Yeeeah! Ha ha ha, good work CK!
Good luck in the states.

Dean Ouellette
Dean Ouellette like.author.displayName 1 Like

Love the blog Klaus glad you stopped by so I could find it, going in my RSS reader!

Hamish Graham
Hamish Graham

Nnyyyyaaarrrdcore - maybe if you do one of those every day they'll start to feel pretty good, makes you wonder what it would have been like falling out of the titanic or somewhere where the water is close to 0, ouch...

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