8 Tips For Doing Contrast Therapy: How to Get More Out of Your Sessions

If you're an athlete or someone who takes your fitness and health seriously, you may have heard of the benefits of hot and cold therapy (aka contrast therapy). If you haven’t heard of it before or just need a refresher, we’ll give you a quick rundown of some of its benefits and some tips on how to best use contrast therapy to get maximum results.

What is Contrast Therapy?

Contrast therapy involves alternating between periods of hot and cold temperatures. This allows you to maximize both benefits, as a recovery technique to treat physical pain, injuries, and soreness. Individually, hot therapy and cold therapy are both popular recovery methods and when applied correctly and together, you can get even more benefits to help reduce inflammation, improve circulation, and speed up the healing process.

Individual Benefits of Hot & Cold Therapy

There is a reason that hot and cold therapy is so popular with athletes or those serious about injury prevention and treatment. There are many benefits to using both individually and together.

Let's first start with each of their individual upsides:

Benefits Of Heat Therapy

Heat therapy, or thermotherapy, is typically used for chronic injuries or conditions that are slow to heal. Heat therapy has a range of benefits, including:

• Increases circulation to the specific area it is applied to by expanding blood vessels (vasodilation)
• Reduces pain, while at the same time relieving aching muscles and cramping
• Speeds up the healing process by drawing nutrients to the injured area
• Helps the body to get rid of waste products via detoxification

Tips For Doing Contrast Therapy

Now that we know the basics of hot and cold therapy and have covered each of their benefits, let's take a look at some tips for combining them correctly.

1. Listen To Your Body

Your body is good at telling you what it needs, so it's important to listen to it when you're doing hot and cold therapy. If you find that contrast therapy is working considerably well, continue with it and make adjustments based on your specific needs at that time.

On the other hand, if the application of heat or cold is causing you more pain or feels extremely uncomfortable, stop immediately. You can avoid this by wearing appropriate clothing, only using the coldest and hottest temperature you can realistically handle, and working your way up (or down) in temperature later.

2. Stay Hydrated

It's important to stay hydrated when doing hot and cold therapy, as it can cause you to sweat a lot. Drink plenty of water before, during, and after your sessions to ensure that you replenish the fluids you lost. You might also consider using a sports drink to replenish your electrolytes.

3. Protect Your Skin

When using hot or cold therapy, protecting your skin from burns or frostbite is important. Don't apply heat or cold directly to the skin — use a towel, cloth, or ice pack. If you’re using an ice bath, shower, or similar method, consider wearing appropriate clothing that will protect your skin but still allow the heat or cold to pass through.

4. Stretch During Heat Therapy

When you’re using heat therapy, it's important to stretch during or after your session when your body is already warmed up but before you switch to the cold therapy session. This will help increase blood flow and prevent cramping with the temperature change.

5. Don't Underuse Heat

A common mistake people make in contrast therapy is underusing heat by not using water or a sauna that is hot enough. When you're using heat therapy, don't be afraid to use it for longer periods or turn up the heat a little more. The benefits of heat therapy are cumulative, so the longer you use it the better. Just make sure that you're following Tip #1 and listening to your body, only using as much heat as you can handle. As you continue to do heat therapy it in the long run, try turning up the temperature little by little.

6. Try to Increase Contrast Intensity as You Go

When doing contrast therapy, it's important to gradually increase the intensity of both the heat and cold applications to build the contrast. With both hot and cold, start with temperatures you can handle, and work your way further apart with continued sessions.

7. Finish With Cold Therapy

When you're completing your alternating hot and cold therapy sessions, always finish with cold therapy. If you finish with heat, it may worsen swelling and inflammation. For those that don’t have current swelling or inflammation, you may be comfortable ending with heat — but we highly recommend that those new to contrast therapy finish with cold.

8. Know That The Pain May Return At First

In the early days of your contrast therapy sessions, it's normal for the pain to return after several hours. However, this doesn't mean that the therapy hasn't worked — with time, the pain should grow less severe and get slower to return. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

Other Safety Considerations

There are a few other safety considerations that you should keep in mind when doing contrast therapy:

• Don't use cold or heat therapy on open wounds
• If you have any kind of heart condition, consult with your doctor before using either heat or cold therapy
• As we mentioned before, do not apply ice directly to the skin — always use a towel, cloth, or ice pack in between
• If you start to feel dizzy, nauseous, or lightheaded during your therapy session, stop immediately and consult with your doctor