Cold plunge pool therapy
This article applies to those homeowners that are thinking of building a pool with a spa / hot tub or currently have a pool with a spa / hot tub. They may have one or more people that are elderly and have occasional joint pain or perhaps someone younger that trains in some sort of sport. For them, I would highly suggest that they consider installing a heat pump that has the option of cooling their pool / spa as well. They can use this cooling feature to turn their hot tub into a cold plunge pool / spa. For the elderly, cold plunge pool / spa therapy helps reduce muscle and joint pain. Many athletes young and old use this cold treatment to repair their muscles at a quicker pace between workout sessions.
Athletes are always looking for the next best thing when it comes to training. No matter what sport, there is always a new technique and some trainer pushing the latest and greatest. Many of these athletes move forward with blinders on, only focusing on new training techniques and often forgetting about one important thing, recovery. Most people think of recovery as simply resting your muscles on an off day of training but there is another way available to those of you that have an in-ground spa or hot tub. It’s called Cryotherapy.
In sports medicine Cryotherapy is using cold temperatures to medically treat muscles and joints. This cold therapy can rapidly heal sore muscles and joint pain. It also reduces swelling to injured areas of the body. Many major league teams use this treatment regularly. Some athletes as well as athletic trainers swear by it. When you train your muscles intensely you cause micro trauma to the muscles which actually tears and breaks the fibers. This causes Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS.) Many of us know this as the soreness the day after working out sometimes lasting 2 or 3 days, OUCH. When athletes use a cold plunge bath from between 10 to 20 minutes of soak time they constrict the blood vessels of muscles to help carry lactic acid (the thing that causes your muscles to burn) away. Once they get out of the cold plunge pool, the blood vessels then open up. As they warm up blood flow increases significantly. This brings necessary nutrients to rapidly repair the trained muscles. Increasing the speed of muscle “recovery time” helps you train your muscles faster and more intense than without it. Just think about it, your edge in training over the next guy is literally sitting around for 10-20 minutes.
Most endurance athletes like marathon runners and triathletes would extremely benefit from this cold plunge therapy. Those that fall into these categories should seriously consider installing a heat pump with a cooling feature on your pool and spa. This will allow you to have the best of both worlds, a hot tub AND a cold plunge. You simply select the desired water temperature much like you would on an air conditioner and the heat pump unit will do the rest. Selecting your desired water temperature is a MAJOR benefit of a cold plunge pool / spa. This is useful so that you can endure a certain amount of necessary “healing time” in your cold plunge spa / pool. Try doing that with an ice pack or a bucket full of ice, you can’t.
Swimming Pool Heat Pump with Cooling.
We have many heat pump / cool models available to us in the Orlando area. The Pentair Ultratemp can heat up to 104° and cool down to 45° F. The Thermeau is a low cost/high performance option that allows temps set as low as 51° Fahrenheit and works all the way down to 32 degrees ambient air temperature. Aquacal makes the Tropicool that allows its lowest water temp to be set for 45° Fahrenheit. All of these heat pumps have a defrost feature so they are able to work at a lower ambient air temperature than other heat pumps. Regular heat pumps without this feature shut down when the ambient air temperature is 55° F or below. So when you neighbor’s heat pump stops working in January or February on those extra cold days you still are able to keep on swimming. Call us to repair or install your swimming pool heat pump in Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties. We work all over Central Florida.
We’ve found a great article on nutritional information to help with muscle soreness.
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