[tomtom]

Maybe of some relevance to climbing - saw this posted by an FB friend (former pro cricketer) bemoaning that all those ice baths were pointless..

Post-exercise recovery of contractile function and endurance in humans and mice is accelerated by heating and slowed by cooling skeletal muscle

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28980321/

[duncan]

N=5 humans and they measured short-term (after 2 hour) effects. Conclusion for climbers: keep warm between red-point attempts.

Cooling muscles after exercise seems to reduce subjective soreness in the following days but the effect on function not proven either way.

[gme]

Anyone have experience of icing fingers after climbing.
I am having issues with very sore fingers after a hard session Bouldering and swollen knuckles.
Started to ice straight after I climb and seems to help recovery.

[highrepute]

I saw Adam Ondra cooling his arms in the stream below Malham after climbing. What more proof do you need?

[SamT]

Anyone have experience of icing fingers after climbing.
I am having issues with very sore fingers after a hard session Bouldering and swollen knuckles.
Started to ice straight after I climb and seems to help recovery.

search 'Lewis Reaction' on this site and you'll get tonnes of posts about recovery, both from injury, but also just post climbing recovery using ice baths.  I've generally found it helps.

[Jim]

I remember putting my arms in the trough of glacier water in the village at magic wood for as long as I could bear it after a hard days climbing, arms definitely felt less sore/better the next day

[asmallman]

If you feel a benefit, why not? And for what gain? Elite athletes do it to allow multiple days of high level training, I'd hardly fill a bath with ice every night and sit in it just so I could go out climbing the next day FFS

[SA Chris]

Anyone have experience of icing fingers after climbing.
I am having issues with very sore fingers after a hard session Bouldering and swollen knuckles.

I find it helps my painful and swollen knuckles (especially ring finger which looks like a grannies ankle most of the time), usually run them under cold water tap for a few minutes when I finish climbing, when i get home, then a couple of times the next day.