To give you an idea of the miscommunication, a lot of the benefits listed for taking cold showers are actually more appropriate for ice baths. There are a lot of studies that show that immersing yourself in ice-cold water in a tub will reduce:
- Muscle soreness
- Fatigue
- Muscle damage
- And inflammation
The studies went even further and there’s a 2018 meta-analysis of 99 studies that found ice baths are more effective in those categories than doing active recovery, massages, or using compression garments.
Why people often make the jump to think cold showers do the exact same thing could be boiled down to laziness. After all, not many people really want to fill their tubs up with bags of ice. Looking for the next best thing, a cold shower seems like a good alternative.
The only problem is those benefits that are listed off are not as potent compared to taking an ice bath. This is often unmentioned in those graphs or in articles and people presume they’re getting massive benefits from doing these things.