Ecological Applications of Whole-Body Cryotherapy in Sport: Benefits, Limitations, and Future Directions

Whole-body cryotherapy or cryostimulation consists of exposing the body to extreme cold in gaseous form. Exposure times vary from 1 to 4 minutes and cold chamber temperatures from -60 to -195 °C. Initially used in wellness and curative care centres, this technique has gradually spread to the world of sport, with the initial purpose of improving recovery. Since 2005, the scientific literature has grown considerably and now covers many sports or fatigue situations. Peer-review articles, literature reviews and meta-analyses have made a substantial contribution to the knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms underlying this technique. However, there is still a great deal of controversy surrounding this technique and little consensus on its application on the field. This is especially because a large part of these studies implemented fatiguing exercises that demonstrate low level of ecological validity. In this short review, we propose to focus our analysis on ecological sports studies. The results show that racing sports like running or cycling, net/court sports and resistance training could benefit from the use of WBC in recovery, especially on muscle soreness. In contrast, invasion sports like team sport do not seem to gain any benefit from using WBC, apart from the reduction of the inflammation. Finally, indirect markers of the recovery such as sleep maybe positively affected in racing sport and aesthetic sport but not in the other sport categories. In conclusion, the number of good quality studies remains low, and research must continue to clarify the many questions that remain about this recovery technique. Emphasis needs to be placed on evaluating extreme cold exposure protocols (duration, frequency, timing) to individualize them in order to increase the chances of a positive outcome.