No abstract

The final hours of preparation before competition are important for performance. Recovery, preparation and warm up protocols are evolving continuously and include passive and active modalities often developed by “trial and error” approaches. Passive modalities, such as whole-body cryotherapy (WBC), have the potential to enhance both recovery and preparation. Whole-body cryotherapy has generally been used within a recovery setting after competition or strenuous training for athletes, and in clinical settings for the general population. However, the acute hormonal, anti-inflammatory, perceptual and psychological responses yielded by a single, or repeated, bouts of WBC indicate that this practice could enhance an athlete’s competition readiness when used alongside traditional elements of active warm-ups in the hours before competition in addition to aiding recovery in the hours after. Here we summarize and evaluate the acute effects of WBC exposures on physiological, performance and perceptual responses, and examine the likelihood these responses could theoretically translate into enhanced athletic performance. The potential to enhance an athlete’s performance using acute passive WBC exposure is a novel intervention that requires further investigation.

Whole- (WBC) and partial-body cryotherapy (PBC) are commonly used sports medicine modalities for the treatment of injury and exercise recovery. Physiological and perceptual effects have the potential to be utilised in a novel application that involves pre-exercise WBC and PBC exposure to improve physical performance. A systematic literature search of multiple databases was conducted in July 2021 to identify and evaluate the effects of pre-exercise exposure of WBC or PBC on physical performance measures, and any potential translational effects. The following inclusion criteria were applied: (1) use of WBC or PBC exposure pre-exercise, (2) use of WBC or PBC in healthy and/or athletic populations, (3) control group was used in the data collection, and (4) investigated physiological, psychosocial or direct physical performance impacts of pre-exercise cryotherapy exposure. A total of 759 titles were identified, with twelve relevant studies satisfying the inclusion criteria after full-text screening. The twelve studies were categorised into three key areas: performance testing (n = 6), oxidative stress response (n = 4) and lysosomal enzyme activity (n = 2). The potential for eliciting favourable physical and physiological responses from pre-exercise WBC or PBC is currently unclear with a paucity of good quality research available. Furthermore, a lack of standardisation of cryotherapy protocols is a current challenge.

This study aimed to evaluate the application of a single pre-exercise bout of partial-body cryotherapy (PBC) to augment jump performance, salivary biomarkers and self-reported performance readiness. Twelve male rugby union players (age 20.7 ± 3.2 yr; body mass 93.1 ± 13.9 kg; mean ± SD) were exposed to PBC for 3 min at –140°C or control condition prior to a pre-post series of loaded countermovement jumps (CMJ), salivary biomarker samples and performance readiness questionnaires. PBC elicited a moderately greater improvement in CMJ velocity of +4.7 ± 3.5% (mean ± 90% confidence limits) from baseline to 15 min in comparison with a -1.9 ± 4.8% mean difference in the control condition. The mean change in concentration of salivary α-amylase at 15 min was substantially increased by +131 ± 109% after PBC exposure, compared to a -4.2 ± 42% decrease in the control. Salivary testosterone concentrations were unclear at all timepoints in both the PBC and control interventions. Self-reported perceptions of overall performance readiness indicated small to moderate increases in mental fatigue, mood, muscle soreness and overall questionnaire score after PBC compared to control with a higher score more favourable for performance. The application of pre-exercise PBC can elicit favourable outcomes in controlled physical performance tests and holds promise to be applied to training or competition settings.