Cool Training Techniques: Cryostimulation Improves Anaerobic Exercise Capacity

Are you training to gain strength? If so, you might be interested that Polish scientists (Klimek. 2010) found that cryostimulation, i.e. short term exposure to -130°C, stimulates anaerobic exercise performance.

In the male subjects, whole body cryostimulation caused a significant (P < 0.05) increase in relative values of peak power (11.1 vs. 11.9 W×kg-1). A significant (P < 0.05) increase in mean power (723.9 vs. 756.1 W) was also observed, as well as an increase in total work (13.77 vs. 14.53 kJ) registered in the Wingate test after the whole body cryostimulation. Additionally, a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in time to reach peak power from 6.67 to 5.92 s in the post-cryogenic treatment test was registered. However, the changes in time to sustain peak power were not significant.

Interestingly women did not benefit from the study protocol. While the scientists do not give a comprehensive explanation for the lack of effect on female athletes, I would suspect it is due to the fact that women are cold, anyway - why else would they constantly want to borrow you shirt on a mild summer evening ;-)