Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

by Alex Hutchinson

They compared fifteen-minute post-cycling-workout soaks in either cold water, lukewarm water, or lukewarm water with the addition of a special “recovery oil.” “We made sure that we put the recovery oil in the water in plain sight of the participants,” recalls David Bishop, the study’s senior author, “and we gave them a glossy summary of some made-up research about scientifically proven benefits of ‘recovery oils.’”6 Over the following two days, the researchers tested their subjects’ leg strength—which, in the end, is the most important recovery outcome. Sure enough, the ice bath significantly outperformed the lukewarm bath throughout the two-day recovery period. But the recovery oil was just as good, and perhaps even marginally better than the ice bath—even though the oil was, in fact, a liquid soap called Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser. This, you might think, debunks the value of ice baths once and for all—except for the fact that the athletes who had either ice or oil really did seem stronger in the two days following the workout.