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You finish a hard workout. Your legs burn. Somebody online says the answer is a tub of ice water, a massage gun, a pair of tight compression leggings and a recovery drink.
It feels like the responsible thing to do. Recovery has become its own little industry, and it’s easy to believe the person who recovers best is the person who buys the most.
But when researchers look closely at ice baths and muscle growth, they find a twist. The cold that makes you feel better tomorrow may quietly take a small bite out of the muscle you were training to build. And the recovery tools with the strongest track record turn out to be the three nobody can sell you.
What the new recovery commentary actually says
In October 2026, Max Davis, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Bath’s Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism, wrote a plain-language review of popular recovery tricks for The Conversation. It was then reprinted by ScienceDaily under a headline about recovery tricks that “backfire.”
That headline is a bit louder than the piece itself. This is a commentary, not a new study. Here is what it actually says:
- Ice baths (sitting in water colder than about 15°C) may ease soreness and help muscles feel ready again sooner. But, in Davis’s words, dampening the body’s inflammation response with ice baths “may limit some of the long-term benefits of training.” His advice: save them for when fast recovery really matters.
- Compression garments may help blood flow, but the proof that they restore muscle strength is weak. Davis points to a 2022 study that compared them with a dummy pill, and suggests they “may mainly help because they make you feel better recovered.”
- Massage has fairly steady support for easing soreness and making people feel recovered. Real gains in performance are “modest and inconsistent.”
- Supplements are mixed. Protein helps a bit. Tart cherry juice and omega-3s show some promise, but results are uneven. Whole food is preferred.
And then the line that sums it all up: recovery “cannot be bottled and sold.”
Do ice baths really slow muscle growth?
This is the claim that gets passed around the most, so it is worth checking where it comes from.
The best-known study is from 2015, published in The Journal of Physiology by a team led by Llion Roberts. Twenty-one active young men did strength training twice a week for 12 weeks. After every session, half of them sat in cold water for 10 minutes. The other half did an easy, active cool-down instead.
Both groups followed the same training plan. But at the end, the cool-down group gained more strength and more muscle. Inside their muscle fibres, the researchers could see the growth happening. In the cold-water group, those same changes did not show up. The lead author called it the strongest evidence at the time that regular cold water use “may interfere with strength training adaptations.”
One study is not the whole story, so in 2024 a team led by Alec Piñero pulled together every study they could find on the question. Only eight studies made the cut. Published in the European Journal of Sport Science under the title “Throwing cold water on muscle growth,” their analysis found some evidence that people who added cold water after lifting grew a little less muscle than people who just lifted.
Notice how careful that sentence is. The effect was small. The range of possible results still included “no difference at all.” Eight studies is not many. So the honest answer is: regular ice baths after lifting probably trim your muscle gains a little, but this is not settled. Anyone telling you ice baths are “proven” to ruin your gains is overclaiming. So is anyone telling you they’re pure benefit.
The part most headlines skip: cold actually works
Here is the surprise. The best-known review on this topic does not say cold is useless. It says almost the opposite.
In 2023, sport scientists Matthew Driller and Alana Leabeater published a review in the journal Sports with a perfect title: “Fundamentals or Icing on Top of the Cake?” They sorted recovery tools by how strong the evidence is. Cold-based recovery, compression, foam rolling and water-based recovery landed in the better-supported group. Massage guns, saunas, recovery boots and some other gadgets had weaker or mixed evidence.
So how can cold both work and hurt? Because it is doing exactly what it says on the label. It helps you recover. The catch is that recovering and adapting are two different goals.
- Recovery means feeling ready again soon. Less soreness. Fresh legs for the next match.
- Adaptation means your body actually getting stronger, building new muscle, so that the same effort is easier next month.
Some of the soreness and swelling after training isn’t damage to be erased. It is part of the signal that tells your body to rebuild stronger. Turn the signal down too often and you may feel great while building less.
That’s why a footballer in the middle of a tournament, playing every few days, might use an ice bath on purpose. Feeling fresh for Thursday matters more to them than an extra sliver of muscle next season. But for most people, who exercise to get stronger and healthier over time, the trade-off often runs the wrong way.
The cake: sleep, food and time
Here is the “cake” in Driller and Leabeater’s title, the part they argue matters far more than any gadget: sleep, nutrition, and planning your training so that hard days are followed by easier ones. The Bath commentary lands in the same place.
None of them can be put in a box and shipped to you. All three are free, or close to it.
- Sleep. The Bath piece suggests aiming for 7 to 9 hours a night. This is when much of the repair and rebuilding happens. If sleep is the hard one for you, our free Why Can’t I Sleep? assessment can help you work out what is keeping you up.
- Food. The commentary suggests around 20 to 40 grams of protein after exercise, plus enough carbohydrates to refill your energy. That doesn’t need powder. Eggs, beans, lentils, milk, fish, or a plate of rice and beans all count.
- Time. Rest days. Easier sessions after hard ones. Building up slowly. This one is the hardest for keen people, because doing nothing feels like falling behind.
If you are new to lifting and wondering why nothing seems to change, it’s worth knowing the body often changes inside before it shows. We looked at a study where strength training shrank fat cells before the scale moved. The rebuilding is happening even when you can’t see it.
A simple way to use ice baths, if you love them
You don’t have to give up cold water. Just use it on purpose.
- Skip it after strength sessions when your main goal is to get stronger or build muscle.
- Use it when the next day matters most, like a tournament, two games close together, or a hard physical job you have to show up for tomorrow.
- Enjoy it for its own sake if it helps you feel calm or awake. Just don’t treat it as the thing that makes you stronger.
- A cold shower is free. If you only want the feeling, you don’t need a special tub.
A good place to start:
Why Your Mind Won’t Slow Down at Night
A short guide to why your thoughts speed up at bedtime, and the 5-step order that helps them settle so real rest can happen.
Get the free guide Free.
The muscle grows while you rest
There’s one fact underneath all of this that’s easy to forget. Muscle does not grow during the workout. The workout is the signal. The growing happens afterwards, while you eat, while you sleep, while you take the easy day you felt guilty about.
We have turned rest into one more thing to perform. Another session, another product, another number to track. But the research keeps pointing back to rest you don’t so much achieve as receive. You lie down, and the repair happens without you.
It is one of the oldest ideas people have about rest: that God built a day of it into the week, not as a prize for those who earned it, but as a gift on a schedule, for everyone, before anybody could sell anything for it. Thousands of years later, sport science seems to be reaching a similar conclusion through muscle fibres.
The same is true outside the gym. If you feel worn out in a way a weekend never fixes, we wrote about why rest sometimes has to come twice.
So the next time you finish a hard session, it may be worth trying the cheapest recovery plan there is. Eat a proper meal. Go to bed on time. Let tomorrow be easy. The work you did today isn’t finished yet. It finishes while you rest.
Discussion question
Do you think the recovery industry has helped people train better, or has it made rest feel like one more thing to buy? Share what you think in the comments.
Share this
- Turns out ice baths might help you feel recovered while trimming the muscle you were training to build. The best recovery tools are still sleep, food and time. https://bgodinspired.com/
- Muscle doesn’t grow during the workout. It grows while you rest. Maybe take the easy day without guilt. https://bgodinspired.com/
- A sport science review literally called recovery gadgets “the icing” and sleep, food and planned rest “the cake.” I’ve been eating icing for years. https://bgodinspired.com/
Questions people ask about ice baths and muscle growth
Do ice baths reduce muscle growth?
Some studies suggest that regular ice baths after strength training can reduce muscle growth a little. A 2015 study in The Journal of Physiology found that men who sat in cold water for 10 minutes after each strength session for 12 weeks gained less muscle and strength than men who did an active cool-down. A 2024 meta-analysis of eight studies in the European Journal of Sport Science found a small effect in the same direction, but the result was not conclusive.
Are ice baths good for recovery after exercise?
Ice baths, meaning sitting in water colder than about 15°C, can reduce muscle soreness and help people feel ready to perform again sooner. A 2023 review in the journal Sports placed cold-based recovery among the better-supported recovery methods. The trade-off is that using cold water after every strength session may blunt some long-term training gains, so researchers suggest saving ice baths for times when fast recovery matters most, such as competitions close together.
When should you not take an ice bath after a workout?
Researchers suggest avoiding ice baths straight after strength training when the main goal is to build muscle or get stronger, because the cold may dampen the inflammation that helps signal the body to adapt. Ice baths are more useful when someone needs to recover quickly for another event within a day or two. Anyone with a heart condition or circulation problems should talk to a health worker before using cold water immersion.
What is the best way to recover from exercise?
The recovery methods with the strongest support are sleep, good nutrition and well-planned rest. A 2023 review titled “Fundamentals or Icing on Top of the Cake?” described these as the foundation of recovery and gadgets as the extras. A 2026 University of Bath commentary suggested 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night, about 20 to 40 grams of protein after exercise, enough carbohydrates, and regular rest days or easier sessions.
Do compression garments and massage guns actually work?
Evidence for both is mixed. Compression garments may improve blood flow, but proof that they restore muscle strength is weak, and a 2026 University of Bath commentary suggested they may help mainly by making people feel more recovered. A 2023 review in the journal Sports placed massage guns among the recovery tools with weaker or mixed evidence. Traditional massage has more consistent support for reducing soreness, but its effect on performance is modest.
