Effect of acute cooling recovery on vertical jump and reaction time

Abstract

Background: Athletes are required to compete without a sufficient recovery due to a limited resting time between bouts of exercise. Cryotherapy has been used for recovery for exercise performance. We tested a hypothesis that a 10-min cooling recovery for the lower body would enhance recovery for vertical jump exercise performance as well as reaction time following the 30-sec Wingate anaerobic test. Methods: 11 Healthy male subjects visited a total of three times including a familiarization visit. Following the 10-min rest, vertical jump and reaction time trials were performed before and after a traditional 30s-anaerobic Wingate test (WAnT). Following 10-min recovery period with or without a cooling suit for lower body, this procedure was repeated one more time. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was utilized to analyze jump performance and reaction time. Results: Time to reaction and time to take-off during reaction time test were not changed throughout the entire test and no differences between recovery modes were found (p>0.05 for all). After 10 min recovery, vertical jump performance was partially recovered in both recovery groups. However, there was no effect of cooling recovery relative to the control counterpart (P