Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Cold showers

I like cold showers, mostly in place of ice baths. I don't really have the time to buy bags of ice every time I do a long run, and the water out of the pipes comes out at 50 odd degrees, so I figure it's close enough for who its for.

Besides, it makes my showers faster. I don't wait for the water to warm up before hand, and I usually need a little bit of a shock to get me moving in the morning, anyway.

But the big point is, it makes my legs feel better. After a hard run my legs feel sore enough that I stumble around like my muscles just don't want to work. For some reason, the cold water spray down helps out a lot.

You can talk about how vasoconstriction can decrease inflammation, but can the cold water really penetrate that deeply into the muscles of my thigh? I don't know. I do know that it works and even if it's all psychological, I'm okay with that.

All I really need to do is have the courage to get into the shower after my harder runs. I know my legs will thanks me for it. But I don't know if it gets any easier.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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