How to Warm Up After an Ice Bath the Right Way

Mentally invigorating and often literally breathtaking, when it comes to cold exposure therapy and training as part of your exercise and self-care routine, there are few better ways to go about it than with a quick ice bath.

But while taking regular ice baths can certainly be refreshing and provide numerous health benefits, there is a right and a wrong way to go about doing them, and that includes what to do after an ice bath.

So, if you’re thinking about doing your first cold plunge or improving your current ice bath routine in the near future, and want to know more about how to warm up after an ice bath correctly to minimise the chance of injury, we’ve broken down everything you need to know about ice bath recovery in this guide.

What to do after an ice bath?

Having stayed in your cold plunge long enough to get the benefits of using an ice bath, your first instinct is to probably climb out, get yourself dry, and warm yourself up, and this is certainly the right thing to do. However, because we don’t want to injure or shock your body, this needs to be done gradually over time.

Therefore, you should start your ice bath recovery process by doing the following steps in order:

Start by thoroughly drying yourself off with a room temperature or warm towel.
Once dry, cover yourself up in warm clothes.
While doing this, perform slow and deep breaths to help regulate your body temperature and nervous system response so that you don’t experience shock.
From here, start the warming process by engaging in some low-intensity exercise and dynamic stretches, all of which will encourage blood back to your body’s extremities.
Finally, once you’ve done a light workout, eat some warm food and enjoy a hot drink to further boost your body’s core temperature further and then relax somewhere warm so that everything can settle to normal levels.

Does that all make sense? If not, don’t worry, we’ve broken down each of these steps in greater detail below.

Why is warming up after an ice bath important?

Before touching in greater detail on what to do after an ice bath, it’s worth discussing why warming slowly after a cold plunge is so important – besides the obvious problems that come with exposing your body to cold temperatures over a prolonged period of time.

Essentially, when you expose yourself to colder temperatures, your body will naturally constrict your blood vessels in order to keep your internal organs warm. This is why you may find your fingers and toes get numb after longer cold plunges.

Alongside this, such a reduction in blood flow combined with the effects of lower temperatures will cause your muscles to restrict and tense, making them difficult or even painful to move.

And it’s for these two reasons that promoting a gradual increase in body temperature over time is so important. Simply put, if you suddenly shock your body with a rapid temperature change, there’s a chance you will damage your muscles and stress your central nervous system, blunting the natural recovery process.

Instead, through a slow process of increasing your body’s core temperature, you can promote blood flow back into your extremities and gently release the tenseness in your muscles, allowing your body’s natural healing process to begin unprompted.

What should I wear after an ice bath

As we’ve already mentioned, when leaving an ice bath, your first step should be to dry off and get dressed. To help with this step, you should make sure that these clothes are at least room temperature, if not warmer, and start by getting dressed from the top down.

Furthermore, you want to make sure that these clothes are thick and good at retaining body heat. Items such as sweaters, jumpers, thick towels, and bathrobes are excellent for this and will help you retain body heat and reduce shivering.

What exercises should you do after an ice bath?

Once you’re fully dressed and your breathing has levelled, it’s time to start some gentle exercises to boost your circulation. This can be as simple as slowly walking around in order to engage your muscles and loosen them up before moving onto more intense movements and dynamic stretches, such as:

Pushups
Air squats
Arm circles
Leg swings
Horse stance
Low-intensity yoga

From here, you could then try a gentle cycle or swimming in warm water as a way to engage your whole body, but you should only do this if you feel up to the task. Remember, this is all about helping your body to recover, so don’t do anything that might cause you to overexert yourself or lead to unforeseen injuries.

What should I drink after an ice bath?

Finally, having done your exercises, it’s time to find a comfy spot to sit back and enjoy a warm snack and a hot drink. Ideally, you should pick a beverage that’s low in caffeine, such as hot chocolate or green tea, so that you don’t disrupt the natural pace of your body’s recovery process.

As for food, we recommend eating a snack that’s high in protein and fats, such as eggs, lean meats, and seeds, though soup is also an excellent option as well – provided it’s made fresh and not filled with preservatives.

What else can you do after an ice bath to warm up?

For those new to ice baths and cold plunges, the steps we’ve outlined above should be enough to get you started and help you recover completely from this exciting and new experience.

However, if you’ve been doing ice baths for a while and are looking for some more unique ways to warm up after a plunge, you could try either of the following:

Sunbathing: if you’re partial to a bit of contrast therapy or drying off naturally post-plunge, then sunbathing is an excellent option to try. Typically done au naturale, sunbathing after an ice bath allows your body to gently warm up with all the usual benefits, though it should only be done in warm weather to avoid continual cold exposure.
Massages: similar in its benefits to exercise, a gentle massage is a good way to promote circulation to your extremities through whole hand tapping on different parts of your body, such as your fingers, toes, and face, though we’d still recommend combining this practice with exercise to get the full recovery benefits.

Should I have a hot shower after an ice bath?

If you’ve been doing research on cold plunges and cold expose therapy before reading this guide, you might be wondering why we haven’t touched on or included the use of hot showers and saunas after taking an ice bath in our steps.

This is because we simply wouldn’t recommend doing either of these things post-plunge in order to promote proper healing. As we noted earlier, sudden temperature changes can actually hurt your body and nervous system, hence why we want to avoid them after a cold plunge.

Therefore, you should only take a hot shower after your internal body temperature has returned to normal, although you can try a sauna afterwards, provided you increase the temperature to warmer levels over a slow period of time.

Take your first cold plunge with Chill Tubs

So, now you know everything you need for what to do after an ice bath. Hopefully, you found our guide insightful and now feel ready to take your first cold plunge or increase how often you use an ice bath going forward.

Of course, after doing this a few times, you’ll need the right equipment to start plunging at home – and that’s where Chill Tubs can lend a hand!

One of the UK’s premier cold tub providers, our products are the perfect way to get all the benefits of an ice bath without ever needing to leave the comfort of your own home. Take a look at our ice bath range today and don’t forget to check out our blog as well for more ice bath guides like this one – such as the best time of year to use a chill tub.

How to warm up after an ice bath