How to Reduce Muscle Soreness | Dr. Andy Galpin & Dr. Andrew Huberman

And I am really in significant pain , you would probably be willing to give up some small percentage of eventual muscle growth after a single session to get out of pain . So , um of the cold strategies , cold water immersion is clearly the best approach rather than cold air or some other tactics . So a cold shower is probably not enough here .

How to Reduce Muscle Soreness | Dr. Andy Galpin & Dr. Andrew Huberman

You really do . Uh wanna be either in moderately cold , this is maybe 40 to 50 degree water , uh , for probably north of 15 minutes or you can be in sub 40 for as little as maybe five minutes to get some of the fact there . And there's been a number of studies .

How to Reduce Muscle Soreness | Dr. Andy Galpin & Dr. Andrew Huberman

And uh and so far in this discussion , we've mentioned cold water immersion and I talked about in the hyper section , how you would not want to do that immediately post exercise , which would be getting into cold water or an ice bath if you're trying to grow muscle mass . Having said that there is good evidence showing that cold water immersion specifically is effective at reducing muscle soreness . So it is a fair consideration and it's a classic example of how there are no free passes in physiology .

How to Reduce Muscle Soreness | Dr. Andy Galpin & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Absolutely . I always recommend that people ease into it as a protocol overall that they not immediately go to 35 degree , uh , cold water if they've never done it before . Uh , that said once people are comfortable being uncomfortable because I always answered the question , how cold should it be ?

How to Reduce Muscle Soreness | Dr. Andy Galpin & Dr. Andrew Huberman

So those are all uh effective strategies outside of that really is the next largest category which is now thermal . And uh and so far in this discussion , we've mentioned cold water immersion and I talked about in the hyper section , how you would not want to do that immediately post exercise , which would be getting into cold water or an ice bath if you're trying to grow muscle mass . Having said that there is good evidence showing that cold water immersion specifically is effective at reducing muscle soreness .