what would happened like a 30 Days War up you took a whole shower every single day and through the cold today we're doing a deep dive into the science and I'll also reveal the results I got from doing the 30-day cold protocol I'll share later on now it seems like wherever you look all the top athletes and celebrities are taking cold showers ice baths and just using cold therapy in general and honestly after looking at the research I can see why they do but what are the specific benefits you can expect how cold does a
water need to be can it help with fat loss or built-in muscle are there any side effects you should know about well you'll start experiencing benefits right from day one it will be the hardest day but also the most rewarding you see exposing your body to cold seems to release three key hormones norepinephrine epinephrine and dopamine together these stimulate what's known as your sympathetic nervous system or your fight or flight response this is what makes you panic and feel as if you need to escape or yell during the cold exposure now the cold not only
elevates these hormones during the exposure but it keeps them elevated for an extended period of time afterwards anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours depending on how cold the water was and how long you were in it the benefit of this is improve mood energy and focus similar to the feeling you get after going for a run or doing a workout coffee actually works in a similar way but activating the sympathetic nervous system it's why many people find they no longer need to rely on coffee in the morning if they instead just jump straight into
the cold but to experience these benefits there's a few things you need to know first the temperature of the water needs to be cold enough one study compared cold water immersion at 90° 70° and 60° F they found a significant increase in dopamine and norepinephrine in the 60° group but not the others now I measured a couple of showers after setting it to the coldest setting and it clocked in at about 50° F I am from Canada so the water is a little bit colder here but still I'd expect most showers should be able to
get around that level but to tell if it's cold enough without a thermometer research suggest it should trigger what's known as the initial inspiratory Gap this is a deep breath your body instinctively PES as soon as you feel the cold but you also need to stay in the cold for long enough enough thing is the subjects in the study I mentioned earlier they sat in the cold water for an hour I don't know about you but I'm not planning to take hour long showers every day I did however find several studies showing benefits with shorter
durations of even just 20 seconds of cold exposure but in most cases they Ed an ice bath instead of a shower so the body could be fully immersed but this doesn't mean a 30-second cold shower won't do anything even if your hormonal increase isn't significant by research standards you'll still very like likely feel a benefit and an increased mood I mean ask you do and comment below if you also notice the difference after a cold shower but to keep feeling that mental benefit over time there's one more thing you need to know it's called attenuation
so over time your body adapts to the cold and the hormonal response seems to die down once you notice this you can try making the water colder or stay in it for longer to continue feeling the benefit all right we've talked about the mental benefits but what about fat loss a common theory is that exposure to the cold boost your metabolism since your body is trying to heat up this burns more calories and can accelerate fat loss as a result what does research say well it's true cold exposure can boost your metabolism most research suggest
that exposure to the cold increases your metabolism by around 15% a 2021 study however found that cold water immersion increased calorie burning far more than this up to 50% in well-trained athletes this took their estimated daily calorie burn from 2,000 calories a day all the way up to 3,000 calories and given that 1 lb of fat is equivalent to roughly 3500 calories this would in theory mean the subjects could burn off a pound of fat every 3 days just from their cold protocol however before you plan your move to Antarctica there's two catches you need
to be aware of first subjects in the study were immersed in the cold for over 3 hours the average shower length is 8 minutes and the amount of time You' spend showering in the cold would only be a fraction of that second the researchers tested metabolism while the subjects were in the cold they used that value to estimate how many calories they burn for 24 hours but this assumes they'd continue burning calories at the same rate for the rest of the day which is very unlikely so even if you crunch the data while being super
optimistic it likely wouldn't end up anywhere close to enough to make a meaningful effect for fat loss unless you quite literally sat in the cold water all day every day but that said there was a study released just this year that throws a curveball to what I just said and even took me by surprise subjects were put into a weekly cold protocol of 53c cold showers and one 2minute cold water immersion to the neck after each exposure they let their bodies naturally warm up for 10 minutes meaning they ended the protocol with the cold rather
than turning the shower to hot water right after doing the cold water after 8 weeks of this the men in the study lost just over 1 cm off their waist and experienced a sign ific reduction in their visceral belly fat this is a dangerous belly fat deep within your organs the women however they didn't experience any significant effects and it's unclear what now although at least for men this sounds promising I decided to take a closer look in the study and I found some serious issues you see the authors only reported the result from the
cold experimental group but to truly understand whether the results were caused by the cold you need to compare them against a control group for whatever reason the research seers decided not to do this even though they actually took the time to include a control group in the first place but if you do compare the two groups you'll find that there wasn't any significant difference between them this was just one of the many issues with this paper which is why a person wouldn't feel confident with any of his fining but now a far more effective and
proven way to lose fat is to use a well-designed nutrition and training plan and if you need help setting one up using the latest scies just head over to build with.com and take my 30second quiz to find the best program for you and your body so we talked about your mood and we talked about fat loss but what about Muscle Recovery and growth how does cold exposure affect that well this is where things get really interesting so ice bats have long been used as a recovery method for top level athletes and for good reason they've
been showing in multiple studies to speed up recovery by reducing muscle soreness fatigue and inflammation after a training session this is great for athletes who need to recover quickly between events but if you're looking to build muscle and strength this may actually be a problem you see after workout your muscles temporarily become damaged and inflamed it's part of their recovery process to grow bigger and stronger taking ice baths immediately after your workout can interfere with this process by reducing the inflammation this is one of the possible reasons why three Studies have now shown that posttraining
cold water immersion significantly decreases muscle growth so if you want to maximize growth growth and strength you definitely want to avoid ice baths immediately after workout either do it before the workout at least 4 to 6 hours after your workout or on a separate day altogether for example I personally do them on my rest day and several hours after my leg day to take advantage of the recovery and soreness benefits without impairing my gains as for cold showers the studies I mentioned they all used ice baths where subjects stayed immersed in the water for anywhere
between 10 to 20 minutes so pretty intense protocols based on that I would speculate that a quick cold shower after workout probably wouldn't have any negative effects on muscle growth and isn't really something to worry about but it also probably wouldn't do anything meaningful for your recovery so it might not be worth the potential downside all right so we've talked about mental benefits we've talked about bat loss and we've talked about Muscle Recovery and growth but there's one more benefit you should know about it's actually the main reason why I personally make the effort to
incorporate cold showers and FS into my routine forcing yourself to mentally withstand a stressor like the cold is an incredible way to strengthen your mind one of the ways it does this is by activating an area of your brain that suppresses impulsivity this can help you remain calm and not overreact whenever stressors come into your life but this also helps build tremendous resilience and grit that can positively transfer into other areas of your life for example during a tough leg workout just like I do with a cold I simply view the pain as a sensation
a sensation that I can overcome with my mind to push my body past my mental limits now for those interested this is a protocol I'm currently following I'd recommend start with cold showers work your way up to 30 seconds to a minute and then over time try to stay in there for even longer or if possible make the water even colder and to further intensify the benefits consider investing in the cold tub which will also give you some of the recovery benefits that showers just don't seem to provide now although all this probably won't do
much for f loss you can click here for a video on what I believe is the most underrated exercise you could start doing today to lose fat faster thanks for watching and I'll see you next time
