Chill Out: Cold Water Immersion for Triathletes

TriDot Podcast Episode 292

Chill Out: Cold Water Immersion for Triathletes

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Announcer: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire and entertain. We'll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let's improve together. Together.

Andrew Harley: Hey everyone. Welcome to the TriDot Podcast. If you've ever taken an ice bath, gone for a cold plunge, or done a little cryotherapy session, or if you've ever thought about it but have never actually done it, today's episode is all about the therapeutic benefits of cold immersion. Super excited to learn about this. I have never done any of these myself as a recovery methodology. So excited to see what I can learn today. Should doing this as a triathlete or am I fine to lead this out of my weekly routine? We're going to find out from our two experts. First up, we have Dr. B.J. Leeper. B.J. is a triathlon coach and a Doctor of Physical Therapy from the University of Iowa College of Medicine. We also have coach Ken Presutti. He's a triathlon coach with Victory Multi Sport out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And the rumor is that he dabbles in taking the occasional ice bath. So excited to talk with these two guys. Dr. B.J. Leeper, Coach Ken how are we doing today?

B.J. Leeper: Doing well. Thanks for having us.

Ken Presutti: Yeah, excited to be here.

Andrew Harley: Well, I am Andrew, the average triathlete, voice of the people and captain of the middle of the pack. As always. We'll start off with a fun warmup question. Then we'll get in to our cold, shivery main set conversation and then wind things down with Vanessa taking over for the coach. Cooldown. Tip of the week. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: Time to warm up. Let's get moving.

Warm Up

Andrew Harley: For today's warm up question, I have what I think is a very fun triathlon. Would you rather question and Dr. B.J. Leeper Coach Ken what I want to know today is for your next race, if you had to wear a weighted vest for one of the three disciplines, the swim leg, the bike leg, or the run leg, in which leg of the race are you wearing the weighted vest? Coach Ken.

Ken Presutti: I feel like the obvious answer here is the run, but really? Cause and so I think that rucking has become such a thing. I've got so many friends that are in that they do rucking events. I've participated in a few. I think that's probably the go to Answer. But, you know, maybe this goes hand in hand with the topic we're going to cover today. Like, the part of me that likes to torture myself almost feels like maybe I'll pick the swim.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And it's so funny when I, whenever I ask one of these, you know, for a ton of time I'll come up with a new triathlon. Would you rather. And in my mind there's an obvious answer and it's the answer that I lean towards. And so I almost talk myself out of asking these because I'm like, oh, well, everybody's just going to say this, but then everybody says different things and it's so, it's so interesting. So you've already answered in a way that I did not expect.

Ken Presutti: So.

Andrew Harley: So I appreciate that my answer here is not the run. Mainly because I am a injury prone athlete, particularly if I do too much volume or too much intensity on the run. Try. That helps keep me keep all of that in check. It knows that by my physiogenomics, it keeps me nice and healthy. Thank you, TriDot. But if I run with a weighted added weight, I just feel like that's just an easy way just to blow some part of my body out of proportion. And so I am not touching weight on the run. Um, I am not a great swimmer. I, I feel like I probably already have problems with my legs sinking on the swim enough as it is. So why do I want to add weight to that equation and, and struggle with sinking any more than I already do? Um, so I, I'm going to do it on the bike. I, I know it's the longest portion of the race and so I'm affecting myself for the longest portion of the race. But I feel like that's where my body would, would be less likely to have a major issue because I have weight. It would just slow me down a little bit. Right. Probably be a little less arrow, uh, everything. But that's my answer. Dr. Leeper, what is this for you?

B.J. Leeper: Well, I mean, I was thinking more like you, Andrew. I was like, is, why is this even a question? Because it seems so obvious. But then I started to think about it a little bit more. I'm like, well, maybe I'm not thinking of it. Right. And so I even started to contemplate, well, maybe in the swim because I'm a bad swimmer and have poor body position where my legs always drop. I'm like, well, maybe if I put it on my torso, it would help my torso in streamlining and lift my legs. But then I'M like, there's no way that's a good idea. So I was thinking more the obvious. Like you, it, it would have to probably be on the bike because I wouldn't want the impact on the run. But, but maybe it helped me on the sense on the bike. So. Yeah, that was my, my knee jerk response too.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, no, yeah. And maybe B.J., like I, I used to like really struggle with pull ups. I wasn't great at pull ups and a buddy of mine in the gym made me start doing pull ups with a little bit of weight dangling from a belt. Not, not, not a lot, but just a little bit. And it was hard. But more importantly, from then on, whenever I would go to do just body weight pull ups, it was way easier than it used to be. And all of a sudden I can do pull ups now. This is years ago, but anyway, I wonder if it'd be like that, like if, if we wore a weighted vest in the swim as guys who have poor body positioning in the swim, when we took the weight off and tried to swim normally again, will we, would we be better swimmers because we. I don't know. I don't know. Ken. Ken is a, a try out pool school coach, so he can probably tell us that that's a good idea or a bad idea. Ken. I'm guessing it's a bad idea, right?

Ken Presutti: I'm gonna go with, yeah, bad idea.

B.J. Leeper: But first, Andrew, tell us how it worked out.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get right on that. B.J.. Right on that. Straight to the pool after this recording. Hey everybody, we're gonna throw this question out to you, our audience. Make sure you're on the TriDot Community hub. If you're a TriDot user, that's, that's a place where we pose this question every single week. Otherwise it is on Instagram and the “I AM TriDot” Facebook group. So really excited to see how you guys answer this question. Is there anybody out there who would want to wear the weighted vest for the swim and be weightless for the bike and the run? I don't know. Can't wait to see what you guys have to say. Find the question, let us know.

Announcer: On to the main set. Going in 3, 2, 1.

Main Set

Andrew Harley: I see all over Instagram, right? All over Instagram, all over social media. I'm sure for our athletes on TikTok, there's reels and reels and reels and YouTube shorts and videos of people dunking ice on their heads, jumping into ice baths, soaking in ice, doing cryotherapy. Sessions. And it just seems like out of nowhere that this blew up to be such a trendy way to recover. Why is cold exposure becoming such a big thing now? Dr. B.J. Leeper, let's, let's throw this question over to you.

B.J. Leeper: It's really interesting, right? And that's why we're devoting a whole podcast to it. Because I think it's become such a thing lately that you can't not see it or have a conversation around it. I think I read somewhere on Amazon like a couple years ago or just a couple years following the pandemic, like ice bath sales increased like 10,000%.

Andrew Harley: Wow.

B.J. Leeper: Over just a short two year span. So obviously it didn't used to be a thing. But then all of a sudden it's a thing. I even read a book. It's almost been a decade ago now. I think the book was written by Scott Carney. It was called what Doesn't Kill Us? And it was basically Scott Carney's following of Wim Hof, kind of the iceman guru from the Dutchman, who is just on these crazy quests of physical environmental feats of training. And even then it was kind of this fad of like, hey, look at what this guy's doing. But I think the real answer to the question, at least my philosophy is that we're kind of now in this golden age of comfort. So it sounds paradoxical, but because we're in this age of technology and comforts at our, you know, every corner, suffering has almost now become this luxury good, like people are manufacturing ways to kind of create that suffer and specifically with cold exposure to manufacture that because we just don't get it through our normal everyday lives anymore. You think about it like we all live in our perfect homeostatic environments of, you know, perfectly temperate environment. In our home, we sleep in our cooled bed and it's, it's all perfect temperature. We get up, we head to work in our car where we've got a heated seat to heated steering wheels.

Andrew Harley: B.J. I'll tell you, I've got and I invested in this when we had our baby. When we had our baby two years ago. I have like the nest. Not nest. The Honeywell's version of a nest. It's Honeywell's like smart thermostat. And I have one in the second floor of our house and one in the first floor of our house. And I have sensors in each bedroom in our house. And so yes, I have in all of our bedrooms the temperature all 24 hours of the day is within the exact one degree that I want it to be at that time of day without me touching a thing. It's beautiful. But, yeah, it's not cold ever.

B.J. Leeper: And I was even thinking about this, watching my kids sporting events, like my kids played baseball. And you see parents even being outside in Montana, where I live, obviously spring sports, you're always out in the elements, but you see everybody huddled in these little pods that are. And no one is getting exposed to the elements like we used to back in the day of chop wood, carry water. But yeah, it's fascinating. So I think we all recognize that there's benefits to challenging our systems. But, you know, no environmental extreme induces as many changes really in human physiology as the cold does.

Andrew Harley: But interesting.

B.J. Leeper: A lot of us don't get that exposure like we used to.

Ken Presutti: I think that's a. A big part of it, is that. That challenge that we put ourselves through. I think that. I think that it's taking off now even more so for a few different reasons. I think I. My first. My first exposure to the idea of cold expos. Exposure was probably 10 to 15 years ago, reading about Wim Hof and some of the other pioneers in the space. And then you couple that with the rise in podcast popularity, and you would hear whim going on to these different podcasts talking about this. You would hear podcasters like Joe Rogan or Ben Greenfield, Andrew Huberman promoting this idea. And I think that over the course of that time, from when I started hearing these things up to now, the science has really caught up with a lot of that, those antidotal stories that we were hearing on these podcasts. So we actually see in the numbers where there might be true physiological benefits to some of these things. And so I think now has been like the perfect culmination of all of this where it's much more mainstream. People are hearing a lot about it. And to B.J.'s point, people really are looking for other ways to challenge themselves and take themselves outside of this comfort zone. So I think those all are contributing to this insane rise in popularity of cold exposure, of these different spots popping up where you could go and you can jump into an ice bath, you don't have to have one at home anymore, almost every major metropolitan area, or you can now.

Andrew Harley: And they're not that expensive, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was so interesting to me here is I have strictly viewed this as like a recovery methodology. Right? Like, I. I have never considered just the appeal or the purpose of just stretching yourself and challenging your system. And putting yourself in an uncomfortable environment and the performance benefits that might have. I've just viewed it as, oh, this person's on Instagram and an ice bath. Cause they just got out of a training session and wanted to recover. I, I've never considered that side of it. And that's the side you both are leading with actually is, is that shock to your system bringing your, your body out of, out of a place of comfort for a certain reason that isn't even recovery. So that's super interesting to me just to kind of calibrate this conversation a little bit differently than what I initially went in assuming it would be about. So there. We've already kind of, I think, alluded to some of the different form factors of this right between ice baths and cryo and, but, but just what, what all is out there on the market? What are the common ways of doing this? And B.J. importantly, is there kind of a different reason to dabble with different formats? Does the form factor of our cold exposure change what it does to our body?

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, and I think you hit on it, Andrew. I consider, you know, as we're talking about cold water immersion, but just in general deliberate cold exposure, I consider it just kind of a pillar of health. Like we consider diet, exercise, I mean truly environmental training and just exposure to the elements. That's a system that's just part of our normal physiology that needs exercise. And to the point we said earlier about modern comforts, if we're not stretching that system or challenging that system. You know, I think back to even my grandparents, like I grew up in Iowa and both my grandparents, both sides of my family were farmers in Iowa. And if I would have ever told them, and two of my grandparents lived to be well over 100. But if I would have ever told them about the things we're talking about today where you're manufacturing this need to get into ice water to expose yourself to the elements. They would have thought it was crazy. It's, I mean, you're going to get cold when you get up at 4am to go out and do your chores. You know what I mean? Like, why would, why would anyone want to contrive a scenario for that? You just do that naturally throughout your, throughout your day. But because we don't get that now, I think we're talking about it as one of those pillars of, of health. And I think to your point of, to the question of, you know, what are the different forms and do they matter? I think the biggest thing when we're talking about cold Exposure is, you know, what is going to, what's going to generate the stimulus in the best way. And I think we'll get into more of the science behind it. But I think there is a lot of good research that cold exposure. And a lot of times in the science world you hear it referred to as deliberate cold exposure because scientists aren't going out and researching people that just happen to be outside for hours and they come back and do tests on them, these human subject studies. They're going into it knowing, like, okay, I'm exposing myself to the elements. And so there is a mental aspect of that that they're studying. But with deliberate cold exposure, I think there's a lot of ways to do it. It's just a matter of, you know, economically what's the easiest way to do it, what's accessible. But now, now, like you guys mentioned, there's now, now there's more and more systems out there because people have realized that there's this luxury good of cold exposure is lucrative. People are paying for it. So I think the main forms though that we see now out on the market are obviously the cold water immersion systems, the ice baths, the cold plunge tanks. But in that same bucket of cold water immersion, there's cold lake plunges, river plunges, all of that kind of fits in that bucket where it's more of a total body cryotherapy where you're all the way up to your neck in the, in the water. So it's, it's covering every area of your body. So it's easy to get the stimulus in, in that way. But there's other forms of it and we'll get into. But cold showers is another form. You hear a lot about cryotherapy chambers or tanks using the liquid nitrogen to, to generate the stimulus. There's not as much research on those specifically, probably most of the research is in cold water immersion studies.

Andrew Harley: Okay, interesting.

B.J. Leeper: So that's, that's kind of the direction of, of where the science comes in, at least the topics of conversation around the studies of, of the science. And what happens with that type of, of form of cold exposure.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, I don't know, man. Those, those kind of freak me out. Like those cryotherapy chambers. You know, I have friends that, that do that or you know, dabbled with it when it first kind of became a thing where, you know, you'd have, at a strip mall in Texas, you'd have a nail salon and then you'd have a, a hair salon and you'd have a Cryotherapy place, like all side by side by side. And it was just kind of just part of the health and wellness routine for a lot of people. And I looked at it and was like, man, I don't want anything artificially getting me that cold for that short amount of time. And we'll talk about it here in a little bit. But jumping in an ice bath or taking a cold shower seems a lot more approachable to me to pull me out of the comfort zone. But we'll talk about those. And Ken, I know just following you on social media as friends, right? Like, I, I've seen that you dabble in some of this stuff. And so I invited you on the show just to kind of talk to us about what you do personally as a triathlon coach, as you're talking with your athletes about this kind of stuff. You know, what do you encourage your athletes to do? So, so just personalize this for us. Like what do you actually do in your routine when it comes to cold exposure?

Ken Presutti: Yeah, it's, it's funny. I actually have been talking with athletes about cold exposure for, for years now and have had several that have been doing it personally. This was probably 20, 24 is when I first started getting into it. So that will all still give me a hard time and say, oh, you're finally on board here. But the benefits that I've noticed have been really great. So in my mind I was, to B.J.'s point, looking for more of the mental challenge, the make yourself uncomfortable, learn to do uncomfortable things and tolerate uncomfortable things. And so that's where it really started for me. And my, my ice bath routine now is different because we're at a different season. I, my, I bought an inflatable ice bath that I could put up in the basement or could put up outside, but I did not buy a chiller to go with it. So in the summer or in the spring, I can't really use it. But starting late last fall, I decided I'm going to put it up on the patio. And so when I first started using it, the water was probably somewhere around 48 degrees. That was the temperature that it was coming out of tap. And so would hop in. I could do longer periods of prolonged cold exposure at that point. And a lot of times athletes that I'm coaching or working with, they're, they're not ready to jump into freezing cold water. So somewhere in the mid-40s works really well for them. And we'll do longer ice baths, maybe somewhere between six and ten minutes at that point. And when we're doing that, I think it's really helping to promote muscle recovery. And I don't want to get into all the science because I know B.J. is going to dive into, into the science.

Andrew Harley: Yes, he is. My very next question. Yes, he is.

Ken Presutti: Yeah, absolutely. But, but I've noticed, you know, just anecdotally I've noticed I feel less inflamed. I feel like my muscles are becoming. Recovering faster when I'm doing those prolonged cold exposures. Now, as the winter would go on, that ice bath would get colder and colder and colder and so to the point where it would freeze over top and would have to break into it to get in. And the water temperature at that point was 33 degrees. That is a lot colder. And I think that there's a very different reason you're getting in there. So again, when I was going in the warmer water, that was very much helping with muscle recovery, making sure that I was being able to get myself adapted to going into colder water. And then by the time the water got to 33, 34 degrees, somewhere in that ballpark, I was taking much shorter ice baths. Two minutes, three minutes. I was really focused on the mental aspect then I really don't want to get into here. And so I was going much shorter periods of time and I was doing it daily, whereas when I was doing the longer ice baths, it might be every other day, every three days. And now that we are moving out of the winter into spring again, the water is way too warm. And so now for doing ice baths, I'm going to one of the local spas or gyms or different, different studios that offer that I'm going back to the water that's closer to 45 degrees for the longer periods of time.

Andrew Harley: Now, I am curious, Ken, with, with that being your primary methodology of cold exposure is do you find there to be a big difference between owning that product, that inflatable tub, or going to a facility near you that offers it versus just throwing ice in the bathtub and trying to, to create a certain temperature for yourself? I'm asking that totally out of naivety. Maybe that would be too cold or not cold enough.

Ken Presutti: I've noticed with the, with the longer exposures in the warmer water, which is what I get when I go to, to some of the different studios around here, I don't see quite the same impact on my HRV. I know it's still stimulating. You know, first giving me that kick of the sympathetic nervous system, right. And then allowing the parasympathetic to, to jump back out and potentially see higher HRV recovery. But during the winter when I'm in the really cold water, that's where I see the biggest impacts to my HRV in general too. And I'm using, I'm using whoop and I have another device that I use to measure my hrv. But I've again anecdotally and you know, M plus one experiment, I see, I see that impact. It's greater when I'm doing the shorter ice baths on a daily basis in the colder water, but I still do see it on the longer days as well.

Andrew Harley: Very, very interesting. Now B.J., Ken is getting into a little bit of what's happening in his body right as he's getting into these kinds of temperatures. Now that science has started to study this, which can also reference the science is starting to catch up to the anecdotal stories from ice exposure. What does the science say this cold exposure actually does for our bodies, both from a recovery aspect and a fitness and challenge mental aspect?

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, there's, I mean there's a lot of science there and it's interesting. But I'd probably be remiss if I didn't mention kind of medical disclaimer, cold water immersion isn't for everybody. So all these techniques and protocols we're talking about here, you obviously want to be safe and make sure that if you have any cardiovascular history, high blood pressure, arrhythmias, poor circulation, any heart problems, anything like that, you know, make sure you consult with your physician, even if you don't have any of those histories, but you're maybe concerned, you know, consult with your physician before ever attempting any of these things we're talking about.

Andrew Harley: Thank you for saying that. Yeah.

B.J. Leeper: But all that said, there's a lot of physiological benefits and there is science to confirm this. One thing I always tell people when I talk about my own personal history with cold water exposure. I remember in 2012 I was training for Escape from Alcatraz and I remember thinking I knew how cold that water was typically going to be. I think at the time of year they were holding it then on average it was going to be low 50s. And I was thinking, that's colder than any water I've ever open water I've ever practiced. I took it upon myself to start taking cold showers in the morning. I'd heard somebody had done that and had good success in adapting to the cold prior to swimming Alcatraz. And I thought, okay, I'll do that. And it was funny because One of the first things I noticed outside of just being torturous and developing that grit factor was afterwards, you know, it sucked when you're doing it. But afterwards I just felt really good. And it just, the prolonged effect of that would last for hours throughout the day. And at the time I didn't know really much science behind it. But now studying it a little bit more and looking at the literature that's out there, it's probably one of the strongest points of evidence we have for the physiological benefit to cold water exposure in that the mental effects, because it does kind of spark our autonomic nervous system and the sympathetic response, kind of that fight or flight response, it sparks that so quickly if the water stimulus is cold enough that it kind of affects this without getting too science-y. It basically affects the release and stimulation of the catecholamines, which is like epinephrine, norepinephrine, which another term for that is adrenaline and noradrenaline and dopamine, which are these neurotransmitters responsible for this feel good effect and improving mood, attention, alertness, focus, energy. All of that is tied to the release of those chemicals in both the brain and the body. And the science has shown that that stimulus and that effect doesn't just happen in the short term immediately after that exposure, but it can last for hours. And I think a lot of people will, will say that you'll hear anecdotally, a lot of people just say, you know, I don't know what it's doing, but I just feel great. I feel great afterwards. Right. And, and that is some of the science behind, behind a lot of that. So it's, it's very interesting.

Ken Presutti: B.J. Correct me if I'm wrong. The studies that I've seen have shown that again, if the water is cold enough, you get those benefits after just a minute or two.

Andrew Harley: Right.

Ken Presutti: You don't have to be in there for 20 minutes to feel these. And in fact, probably the colder the water, the shorter the time you're still going to get that response.

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, and we can jump into that too, because I think the most common question that comes up with deliberate cold exposure is, well, how cold does it need to be? And kind of like what you're talking about, Ken, with your own experience and the changing of the seasons and the different temperatures having sometimes different effects, are you realizing that if it's warmer, you might need to stay in a little bit longer? You know, there's, there's a lot of science and different studies around different protocols of, of time and exposure and then the how cold the temperature needs to be. And it's, it's funny because I think it from reading a lot of different researchers opinions on this, based on the, the science most kind of come to this point where it's, it all kind of falls in that it depends bucket. Right. It's, it definitely is individual, but it kind of comes down to this boiling it down into getting that person to say, okay, this is really cold and I want to get out, but I know I can safely say it whatever temperature that is for you. So for some people, if they put their hand under the shower water or they put their hand in the ice bath and they're like, oh yeah, that's not too bad. It's probably not cold enough. Right. But if they jump in and they're like, okay, this is really cold, I don't want to be in here, but I know I can do it safely for X amount of time, I think that's the appropriate stimulus. It's likely enough to stimulate your autonomic nervous system to trigger the effects that we want. If you look at kind of systematic reviews of the literature, most studies have shown that that range of temperatures anywhere from 44 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit and it's not that you can't go colder, but that, that hasn't been there maybe isn't as much literature on that because.

Andrew Harley: Yeah, and that's probably cold enough. It's probably cold enough for anybody to feel like I don't want to be.

B.J. Leeper: And again, it can differ depending on the person and the person can get more adapted as they go. And it might be intuitive to think this, but obviously the, the lower the temperature, the less exposure you need. So I think again, most would say if there's temperatures closer to the 59, 60 degree Fahrenheit range, you likely would need to be in the water for upwards of 30 minutes or more to really get that same effect. But if it's closer to the 40 degree mark, it might only take 30 seconds for that stimulus to happen for that individual. And again, it depends on the individual. But yeah, I would tell somebody that if you're excited to jump in, it's probably not cold enough for you. Now you might be crazy or you might just realize, hey, the benefits are so much, it outweighs any of that resistance early on. But it definitely should be that shock factor to you. You shouldn't want to get in there at first.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. And I'm obviously from Dallas, Texas and Vanessa Ronsley who is our other host for the podcast, she'll do some episodes, I'll do some episodes. She's from Calgary, Canada, so that threshold for her might be a little different than what it is for to feel like, ooh, that's really cold water. Um, B. B.J. you bringing up Alcatraz is really interesting to me because I've, I've done that race as well, and I lucked out in the sense that I caught it on a warmer year. Yeah, I, I want to say the water temperature for us was 62, 63, 64 the day of the race, which is much warmer than it normally is. When we had a stronger current than normal. That slowed us down quite a bit. Uh, but we didn't have that like shock factor of jumping into the bay and feeling like it was icy cold. Like, like you, you kind of hear people talk about. But for an athlete that struggles in cold open water swims or just dreads signing up for races that have cold open water swims, is this a great way to combat that or is it just. Maybe your body's just not built for that kind of environment, you should find warmer swim venues. What do you think?

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, as we talked about the mental effects that we see the science for in boosting mood and alertness, focus, energy, all the other thing it does, like Ken alluded to as well, it's like you're training your grit factor. And there is something to be said about training that top down control of the prefrontal cortex, which is basically your grit factor area. Like, can I mentally overcome this? And not only that, but there are the physiological changes that do occur as you challenge that system. And that's another one of the big health benefits of, of cold water exposure is that there can be a boost in metabolism and you can actually change your physiology. And one thing we'll, we'll touch on, we won't go down this rabbit hole because it's, it's a topic in and of itself, but that's the topic of, of increasing your brown fat stores. So there's something called brown fat, which is kind of known as your, your thermogenic fat. It's, it's fat that has a lot more mitochondria. It's, it's different than kind of the typical fat most people think of, which is our white fat. It's more, the subcutaneous fat that most people want to get rid of. Brown fat is very different. And it's, it's actually fat that boosts Your metabolism. And through the process known as thermogenesis, which is just kind of the, the way your body then regulates its temperature warms itself up. The more brown fat stores you have, the more able you are to. To warm your body and regulate your. Your temperature. So by training yourself through cold water immersion, you can start to increase your, your brown fat stores. And what's another interesting point with brown fat is many of us as kids have a lot more. A higher percentage of brown fat. And then as we age, we start to lose some of that naturally. And then if you don't use it, you lose it as well. So I always think it's funny because I tell my kids, put your coat on when they go outside all the time. And they never listen to me. And somehow they always seem fine. I'm like, oh, that's probably why they've got more brown fat stores.

Andrew Harley: They can actually so interesting regulate their.

B.J. Leeper: Temperature better than me because I'm freezing. I'm like, how do you not have a coat on?

Andrew Harley: But they're literally built different. They're literally built different. Right? A little bit joke, right? You say about certain athletes or something that, oh, they're just built different or, oh, people, you know, folks from more northern countries that, that can stay in the cold. They're built different. They liter are in this case.

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, yeah, no, totally. It. It is, it is definitely a thing. And you know, as you train that system, like any system, you will adapt to those changes. So I think there is that benefit of increasing your cold exposure to, to change your system in that way.

Andrew Harley: Yeah. That is so interesting. I'm. I'm curious for the athlete who's listening to this and, and maybe they're like, maybe they've dabbled with this before, but it's not part of the regular routine. Maybe they're like me and they've never tried any form of cold exposure outside of just going for a run in the cold. Right. What are the protocols for this? Right. We're hearing there's the different form factors. We're hearing it needs to be uncomfortably cold to where you don't want to do it. And the colder it is, the less time you need, all that kind of stuff. But I'm thinking just in terms of where does this fit in our weekly workout regimen? How often are we doing this? I'm thinking, is there a time of day, like, is this better in the morning or the afternoon or the evening or before a workout, after a workout? What's just the how to's for the best practices for fitting cold exposure into our daily routine. Coach Ken?

Ken Presutti: I would say when I'm looking at this and how I personally go about it is that if I'm working with an athlete who has questions or somebody's brand new to this, let's start with that uncomfortable temperature, but one that is not feeling too cold. So what B.J. had already said, and when we're, when we're working in those warmer temperatures, the 44 to, all the way up to 59 degrees, I think you can, you can look to, to, to safely be in the water for, for up to 10 minutes. Beyond 10 minutes, you know, if the water is warmer, might work, but really once we see or once you get that vasoconstriction that happens in the skin and in the body, there's really not a ton of extra benefits to continuing to stay in there. So you might say, oh, my grit factor wants me to be in here for 20, for 30 minutes. Probably not necessary all of the time on those longer ice baths or those longer prolonged cold exposures. I like those to help with muscle recovery. So if I'm finishing up a very long run or I am finishing a long bike, I might hop in immediately after that workout. Now, if I am going to the gym and I am working a strength day and I'm purposefully lifting to try to build muscle, then I think that there is some science out there that shows that the hypertrophy that occurs is actually diminished due to that, to that cold exposure. So you know when you lift and you're sore, you want to feel that soreness. You don't want to stop that. So if it is a lifting day, I will do cold exposure prior to going to the gym or I'll wait 3, 4, 5 hours afterwards before I, before I hop in. And that's kind of those general longer, warmer cold exposure days. If I'm going for the really cold days, like I had mentioned earlier, the, the 33 degrees, the 34 degrees, again, I'm only jumping in for two, three minutes, but I'm still probably doing that before my workouts and, and I'm not doing it really after my long runs either. If I come home from a long run and it's is that very cold day, I may actually just throw cold water into my tub to help with the muscle recovery on the legs versus jumping into the 33 degree water because I know when it comes into the tub on that cold day, it's going to be closer to 45 degrees coming out of the tap. I live in Pennsylvania. And that's kind of our general water temperature in, in the winter. So that's, that's really how I think about approaching it or, or tackling it for again, kind of different reasons. Right. Or different modalities to this. And then finally I'll say if I'm, if I am thinking about outside of the workouts, the time of day I'm doing these, I do like the cold exposure in the morning because it wakes me up. It gets that dopamine pump in the, all of those other, all of those other hormones that might be going from, from jumping in there. And then at the end of the day, right. I don't want to do it before bed because I don't want all of the, I don't want all of those, those hormones pumping in my body. I'll do more of a, when I'm going to bed, a warm shower. Right. And so actually what happens, I believe, when you're doing that too, is that the cold water, right? It, it causes you to want to, to warm up your core. And so blood comes into the body. And that's another thing that kicks you. It gets you moving. At the end of the day when you're in that warm shower, you're actually doing the opposite. Right. So you're warming yourself up. Your body, your body doesn't need to pull all of, all of the heat into its core. So it actually cools you down a little bit at the core because the warm warmness is on the outside and so you lower your body temperature. And that's actually better for sleeping. But probably sleep science is a whole different podcast.

Andrew Harley: Ken, going into this conversation, I probably would have done a hard workout and dabbled with cold exposure therapy after the hard workout, thinking this is going to help my muscles recover and respond better after this hard workout. And what we're learning is don't do that because of what you just said. So, so I, I'm just finding this so interesting. B.J. is, is Ken right? And everything he just said, is there anything you want to add just for the best protocols for utilizing cold exposure as an athlete?

B.J. Leeper: Yeah. And I think he can spot on with a lot of that. I think one interesting thing with the anti inflammatory benefits of cold water immersion is that they have done some research and there's conflicting evidence. Right. On how much does it become deleterious to like anabolic strength building. Right. And I think there is some science to say if your primary focus is on strength training in hypertrophy of the muscle. So like you said, Andrew that that inflammatory thing that happens to our bodies once we break a muscle down is advantageous to build that muscle back up. So why would we want to inhibit that? And there is some science there that would tell you if your primary focus is strength training to hypertrophy muscles, you should wait at least four hours before doing cold water immersion all the way up to the neck. Right? Otherwise it could be not as advantageous. However, from an endurance training standpoint or high intensity training standpoint, there really hasn't been a lot of evidence to say that it, to do it immediately following that type of activity, that it would decrease performance or inhibit that process, matter of how you respond and how you feel. So I think there is some science to say it can reduce doms, delayed onset muscle soreness. So for some, because it reduces that soreness feeling, they might like it after a long bike ride or a long run just so they can wake up and do it again the next day or do another session the next day and not feel as sore. So there may be some benefits there. Um, but again, if, if your primary focus is, is muscle building, maybe lay off or, or do it earlier. One interesting thing that Ken said that I think is key is time of day can matter. And especially if you're pursuing the cold water immersion primarily for the metabolic benefit, if you were to do it earlier in the day, you would have a bigger gap to bridge with your body having to warm itself up. Because our core body temperature internally is at its lowest about two hours prior to waking up. And then based on our circadian rhythms throughout the day, your core body temperature starts to rise. And then right before you go to sleep, typically the way your body's kind of trained, and your body temperature will then start to lower. So if you were going to do cold water immersion, you know, earlier in the day, before your core body temperature has kind of gotten to its peak, you would have to bridge a big, a bigger gap. So your body would kind of be burning, so to speak, to warm itself up a little bit longer or a little bit more to get there. And depending on how you are, if you were to do it right before bed, you would likely, you know, again, your body would have to ramp itself up with, with its core body temperature. So it might take you a while longer than to get it back down to a cooler temperature where you would normally want to be before you go to sleep. So it's. But it's like some people that drink coffee right before bed, some people, it doesn't bother them if you're super exhausted, wiped out from all your training anyways. It may not matter if you were to do it right before bed anyways because you're already, you know, trashed and ready to sleep. But that's something of note. Just to know time of day can matter.

Andrew Harley: Now, a lot of people like to go back and forth between a cold stimulus to the body and then a hot stimulus to the body. And I've seen this just in a PT environment for myself where a PT on a certain muscle group would oscillate between hot and cold stimulus as part of my recovery treatment. And this obviously is. We're talking more extreme directions right between cold immersion like we're talking about. But a lot of our, our gym facilities and, and a lot of athletes will enjoy using sauna and really like a very, very warm environment as part of their kind of. In a similar way, just get, just giving a different stimulus to the body that they have to grit through that does something different to the muscles. Is there anything where these two fit well side by side or are they just kind of like, like different methodologies that should be viewed as different methodologies?

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, I think there's some really interesting research with this as far as total body exposure to the different elements, whether it's cold or heat or kind of oscillating between both. What you're saying, Andrew, before, with PT is more in that contrast, more isolated to specific area, it's a little bit different. But when you're talking about total body exposure, whether it's kind of that Nordic cycle of going from a dry sauna to then an ice bath, I think there's again, if your focus is on the metabolic changes from that change in temperature. I think there's a lot of science that says that can be even more advantageous of going from a sauna that's maybe 80 to 100 degrees Celsius or like 175 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit or whatever that conversion is to then cold water immersion, which might be in the temperature range of 40 to 50 degrees. That change in that challenge of having your body respond again can create that stimulus that evokes that autonomic response. That's enough to trigger those changes like we're talking about, where they, they might cycle back and forth several times. Just so the body has to really ramp up its thermogenesis and you start to see that increase in brown fat activation. All those things I've even heard. There's one scientist in particular, Dr. Susanna Soberg, that she's a prime advocate of not drying off or not getting warm at the end. And so ending on cold is actually something that she's shown to be more advantageous when you're talking about the metabolic benefits. So you force your body at the end than to warm itself up. And even getting to that stage of where you're inducing a shiver response can actually release a substrate called succinate that helps activate more of those brown fat stores. So there is some science there to say that if you do a little bit of that contrast, going from dry sauna, for example, to cold water immersion and then cycle through a couple times, but then ending on cold and not resisting the urge to get warm right away, like not even not toweling off or not huddling and, you know, clutching.

Andrew Harley: Yourself, not having a blanket at the ready and a fire.

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, that change can actually be more advantageous from, again, the metabolic response.

Ken Presutti: I'm happy to hear you say that because that would be my typical protocol for not the hot and the cold, but when I'm doing the very cold ice baths in the winter time, hopping out, jumping into the house, I. I do have to towel off because otherwise my wife might have something to say. I definitely typically invoke that shiver response. And it probably takes a good 15, 20 minutes to get myself back to where I'm feeling good. So my typical morning routine would be about 9am Hop into the tub, spend three minutes there, hop back up, come inside, and then just head up to work. I would have a few meetings that I would get on, and while I'd be on those meetings, I'd definitely be shivering. But that was my typical go to morning routine over the winter.

Andrew Harley: You know, you're on a podcast with scientists when we're calling it a shiver response as opposed to just being shivery and like, oh, I got the shivers. No, I've induced a shivering response. That's. That's what's. Yeah, go ahead, B.J.

B.J. Leeper: I was just going to say, speaking of, of the different protocols we've kind of touched on, one interesting science piece that came out of a lot of Dr. Soberg's research was that she even wrote a book on winter swimming, for example. But one interesting thing from a time standpoint that she found that was significant to induce a significant response was that over the course of a week, you needed to get at least 11 to 15 minutes of that cold water immersion all the way up to the neck, just per week, 11 to 15 minutes per week, in order to be significant in, in stimulating the body in that that beneficial way.

Andrew Harley: Interesting.

B.J. Leeper: So, again, depending on the temperature and the time spent based on that temperature, you might, for example, do 45 degrees Fahrenheit for up to three minutes, maybe up to five minutes. But just three times a week, based on her research, would say that's significant enough to continue to make some positive physiological changes based on what we're talking about with metabolic changes, not to mention the, the mental benefits.

Andrew Harley: Now, I have one more question for today, and then we'll kick it over to Vanessa for our coach cooldown tip of the week. And what, what I'm wondering as a triathlete, I mean, clearly there's, there's multiple benefits we've talked about here. There's the, the, the grit factor, challenging yourself that triathletes appeal to. So I think a lot of listeners will hear this and, and we've learned some best practices and I think we've, we've heard enough to, to know, okay, we should give this a shot and see what it does, you know, for, for our body. But when I look at what a triathlete does during the week, right, we have our swim training, our bike training, our run training. A lot of us do some form of strength training. A lot of us are doing some form of stretching and mobility work. People have other recovery methodologies they're mixing in, right? Whether that's foam rolling or, you know, spending some time in the recovery boots or spending some time with their massage gun or getting actual massages at a, at a facility that does that. You know, there's a lot for us to do. Where does this mix in? Is this just like, you know, one of several different recovery methodologies that if we're using one, we're using the others and we're recovering? Or, or is this like something that is, it is different and it is special. So it's worth adding into the mix alongside of all these other things. Like what's, what's holistically, when we look at the week of a triathlete, where does this fit in and how much of it do we need compared to other things, Coach Ken?

Ken Presutti: yeah, I think it's going to be different based on the athlete, based on your goals, what you have coming up. So, for instance, when it's winter time here and I've got a plunge on my back patio, I'm jumping in every day for three minutes. It doesn't take any extra time. It doesn't take anything out of the way. Now that we're moving into the spring, into the summer, and I don't have that plunge on my patio. Well, now it's a 30 minute drive to the location where I can get into a tub. It's a 30 minute drive back. That water is a little bit warmer. So again, I'm probably looking at a 10 to 12 minute plunge at that point. So I'm not doing it every day, but I definitely will try to get there a couple times a week. If I had a race that I know is coming up in the spring and it's going to be in a cold lake like we have here in our spring Pennsylvania races, I'm probably prioritizing that because I want to get used to being in that cold water as I come to race day so that my body doesn't freak out if I've not been doing cold water immersion for, for a month prior to that race. So for me, I'm going to prioritize it a couple times a week. I'm not going to use it to replace my other recovery modalities. And when I'm working with athletes, we talk about when are you stretching, when are you having a massage or working pt. Let's try to fit it all in. And again, I think it's going to be different for everybody. The key though, that when you look at each week, you plan exactly what it is you're going to do. Each of those modalities you're tackling has a reason that you're doing it. You're not just saying, oh, I heard somebody talk about this, this modality on a podcast. Is that for me? Talk to your coach, find out why that modality may or may not be for you and incorporate the ones that are ultimately going to help you reach your goals and the ones that aren't. Let them go.

Andrew Harley: Bg. I think Ken hit that pretty well, but anything for you to add as we shut down the main set of this episode.

B.J. Leeper: Yeah, I've probably mentioned this before on a podcast, but I think there's so many things we can do as athletes that I think a lot of times I'll ask the question of the athlete. Like, it's not about adding one more thing to your list, but sometimes you have to figure out, like, what do I need to stop doing right? So yeah, we might be saying, hey, getting this environmental training through cold exposure is a great thing for your body. There can be the recovery benefits, the health benefits, but you know, if, if diet is your biggest thing on your list to check off because you're eating at McDonald's every day, you know that that should be Your focus, it's not just like, hey, keep doing all these things that you know, you need to improve on and then add a cold plunge to, to burn more calories and lose more weight. So obviously it's, it's just, you gotta weigh all those things. But I liked what we talked about earlier where I don't think we need to consider this type of tool or this type of cold exposure as just a recovery method, but it's part of a pillar of health. So I think as we talk about what to do, what not to do, you kind of have to scratch where it itches, address your lowest hanging fruit, but then also think about, yeah, maybe this is something that could help me in a lot of different ways and how do we fit it in? Make sure it's accessible, make sure it's efficient, otherwise you won't commit to anything there. But I think it makes sense.

Announcer: Great set, everyone, let's cool down.

Cool Down

Vanessa Ronksley: All right, everyone, it's time for the coach cool down tip. I'm Vanessa, your average triathlete with elite level enthusiasm. And I'm here today with TriDot Coach Gina Rymall. And let me tell you, she has an absolute heart of gold. Gina started her triathlon journey while studying kinesiology and she became hooked right from the get go. Since then she has actually lost count of how many short course races and 70.3s she's done and she has six full IRONMANs under her belt. Gina has her master's degree in human performance. She's a TriDot Pool School instructor and coaches swimming and personal group training at a fitness center in Texas. She loves working with beginners through to IRONMAN finishers and holds a special place in her heart for first timers. Welcome to the show, Gina.

Gina Rymal: Thanks so much for having me.

Vanessa Ronksley: So, Gina, let's get straight to the tip here. I think this is going to be a really great tip. We've never had anything like this on the cooldown before. So I'm really excited to hear what you have to say and to share with our listeners. So let's hear it.

Gina Rymal: Perfect. Sounds good. I encourage my athletes to practice running barefoot. So whether you're coming out of a sprint distance race in a pool or a full distance IRONMAN in a lake or a river, you're going to have to get from that body of water to your bike barefoot. So practice running on different types of surfaces like grass or mud, sidewalks, maybe some loose pavement, and then do a little research so you know about how far your race is. Some of those races you may have to climb up a handicap exit or something like that, and it's a little bit longer. But if you are just practicing on your trainer and then putting on your shoes and running out the garage, you're getting that muscle memory for the run. But you're not practicing that run barefoot in the conditions that it would be. And that's just one more way you can eliminate a surprise on race day. And the flip side of that is, some races will let you clip your shoes into your bike and push your bike out to the dismount or the mount line. And that's another reason why you need to run barefoot, or your shoes will already be on your feet, and you need to practice running in those bike shoes. Our bike shoes are more solid. They don't flex, and they have those clips or cleats on the bottom that can be really slick or lead to a slip or ankle turn. And so you just want to practice running in those shoes so that you can get your bike out to transition and then back into transition.

Vanessa Ronksley: This is a fabulous tip, and it's something that I wish I had listened to prior to my adventure in Nice, because I have not actually told anybody this, but when I was coming out of the swim exit, I fell flat on my face. Like, I tripped and I fell flat on my face. And. And it was one of those things, like, I. I don't know if it was due to being dizzy or. Or just, you know, going from water to land or whatever. Was there a wrinkle on the carpet? I don't know. But I ended up falling. And. And you're right. Like, it is something to practice. There was a mass, there was an incline that I had to go up in bare feet with wet feet. There was carpet down, but it was slippery. So I think you're totally right in suggesting that. That athletes practice on a variety of terrain to make sure that they're getting that Just, you know, take away a little bit of that. The unknown that might be happening. And another thing that I think is really great is the research aspect, like, find out what your transition area is going to be like, whether that's from swim to bike or from bike to run. Um, when. When I was racing in Wisconsin, I did the relay with Carrie Lubinow. And so she came out of the water, and we had to run together to the exit point so that I could get on the bike because I was not prepared to run on concrete with my injury that I had. And so what we. We ended up doing is we knew that the transition was a really, really long period of time. So A, we had done our research and B, knew that I could not run in definitely not run in bike shoes and definitely not run in bare feet. So I actually wore my running shoes and we sprinted to the bike mount line and then she collected my shoes for me and I got on the bike and got going. Um, so that this is a fabulous tip for all athletes to know what the transition is going to be like and then to practice to make sure that there's no unknown there. So thank you so much for sharing that tip. I love it. Um, I think our listeners are gonna just think that it's a wonderful thing.

Gina Rymal: It sounds so simple. And we drill into our athletes nothing new on race day. But if you've never walked or run barefoot, it's really different. Especially if you're used to like the HOKA shoes or a really squishy shoe and all of a sudden you're trying to run up a conc. Concrete path. It's a lot of impact. It could be slippery. I know I've got semi sensitive feet. And then like I did Waco a month or so ago, it's all sticker burrs. Like you want to be prepared for how that feels so that you know how to react and how to fix your fix whatever just went haywire.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah. And, and even if that means like knowing what the type of terrain you're going to be going on, if that's part of your race plan to walk or to run, because you don't have to run like no one says you have to run. So if it's something that you're not comfortable with, then you're going to take your time and you're going to, you know, walk and then reduce the impact or reduce the risk of injury or, you know, if you have sensitive feet, then just walk slowly and, and let it go.

Gina Rymal: Don't, don't risk a slip or an injury on, on your way to transition. Just you haven't practiced something. But at the same time, like some of those jogs can be a little bit long and if you haven't practiced that, I can waste a little extra energy because, oh, I'm going to sprint to my bike and the next thing you know, you're a quarter of a mile into it and you're out of breath and you're trying to get your wetsuit off or your bike loaded and you're not focused because you've expended all this energy trying to get to your transition.

Vanessa Ronksley: Absolutely. And not even to mention when you're going from that horizontal plane while you're swimming and then standing up, that that can have a lot. Yeah, you could get dizzy just from that in itself. So it's important if you do have a long transition period, you want to make sure that you keep that heart rate low because it will spike.

Gina Rymal: Absolutely.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot Podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community. Connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today. TriDot, the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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