Active Recovery vs. Cold Water Immersion

So let me get this straight .... they performed two equivalent TT tests and measured performance with a 60 minute break between them.  The only varible is that one group took an ice bath and the other group just sat around.  The CWI group did their second TT performance without a detriment in performance.

What does that say to me???  If you are doing back to back efforts (like in some cycling races where people race two different races in one day) that it is a good idea to have a cold shower or an ice bath between the events.  That's just about it ............. doesn't infer anything in my opinion other than that.  To extrapolate that across the boards and say that CWI versus active recovery in normal excercise routines makes any noticeable difference seems to be a stretch.  What it does indicate is in back to back efforts getting core temp down and cooling off is important for peak performance.

I'll keep that in mind next time I'm racing twice in one day with only a short break between.

Agreed overall, and I think you get what I meant by "sitting around" in the rest period.

But it is hard to extrapolate how someone will recover and perform under normal circumstances between one day and the next.  It is really looking at how to effectively lower the participants core temps more than true "recovery" from the excercise and to me their inference is that this lowering of the core temp in hot conditions allows a participant to be able to perform at their normal levels.

Where this may have a more meaningful application would be in multi-day stage racing for cyclists, or even for someone doing the TTT tri where you ARE doing back to back racing on short rest.  But in most of those instances there is anywhere from 4 to 6 hours up to 24 hours pf true rest/recovery at which point everyone would be back to normal core temps.