Hand Cooling Recovery Machine

[Carper Seateck]

Mark,
I am at Stanford University, and lately at the gym I have seen many undergrad-aged people working out with a partner who keeps notes and administers some sort of recovery therapy thing. After the lifter finishes a lift, he puts his hands in two fully enclosed cuffs which are connected to thermoses by rubber tubing. I've heard rumors that some varsity coach has this theory that putting your hands in a bucket of ice water after exercises limits or eliminates recovery time, and an athlete can perform way longer than normally possible. The thermoses on these contraptions are presumably filled with cold liquid and take the place of the big bucket of ice water. I've seen a bunch of different people participating in these "studies," some novice-y looking people and some that look like they are on varsity teams. Have you heard of this? I'm inclined to believe it's crazy. Are all these participants novice enough that they can recover from anything, especially when they think the magic hand cooling recovery machines are helping them out?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I have not heard of this particular thing, but it is the stuff that peer-reviewed papers in the exercise literature are composed of.

[Steve Hill]

It's a device that is used to cool the blood, which then provides core cooling without having to apply any type of reduced temperature device / bath directly to the muscles, so as not to cool down the athlete while training or performing his event. Lower core temps reduce energy consuming tasks the body has to perform such as increased blood flow to the skin or sweating to dissipate heat. It's also a benefit, because it reduces the need to consume fluids, which means that blood is not being used for digestion. I have only ever seen them used in aerobic, high heat-producing sports such as cycling, running events, football, etc. I used one at an outdoor track race and found it useful. Might be a good thing to do if you have a training session in a hot gym, for instance.

It uses the hands because of the ultra-thin skin, and high blood flow in the area.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I wonder how effective it will prove when used on undergrads fooling around in the wellness center?

[Mark E. Hurling]

This sounds very close to something I saw on TV "somewhere" I just can't remember where. But involved using a cooling system with a cuff that fully enclosed the hand and wrist and a cylinder that the subject gripped. A coolant, I seem to think just cold water circulated through the cuff and cylinder and served as a fast cool down from being heated up from exercise in heat to prevent heat stroke. I don't recall recovery was part of this though. The premise was that the hands have so many veins and arteries close to the surface, that coolididnng the blood flow through those particular extremities would cool the rest of the body. Something like us Midwestern kids were told by our parents to put a hat on our heads to keep warmer in the winter. Since so much heat loss is through the head and neck. This sounds like the converse of that old saw. No mention of recovery though. They just 't want us to get sick.

[Eric K]

I actually heard of this thing being developed by DARPA back when I was in college, and that preliminary results were promising, but that implementing it "in the field" remained impractical.

[Steve Hill]

I wonder how effective it will prove when used on undergrads fooling around in the wellness center?

I don't know the specific application. Like I said, it was meant to be used to cool hot athletes. Don't see the application for use in and air-conditioned environment with subjects that really aren't doing all that much work.

[EvanJones]

It's a device that is used to cool the blood, which then provides core cooling without having to apply any type of reduced temperature device / bath directly to the muscles, so as not to cool down the athlete while training or performing his event. Lower core temps reduce energy consuming tasks the body has to perform such as increased blood flow to the skin or sweating to dissipate heat. It's also a benefit, because it reduces the need to consume fluids, which means that blood is not being used for digestion. I have only ever seen them used in aerobic, high heat-producing sports such as cycling, running events, football, etc. I used one at an outdoor track race and found it useful. Might be a good thing to do if you have a training session in a hot gym, for instance.

It uses the hands because of the ultra-thin skin, and high blood flow in the area.

I'm trying to decide whether I am buying the concept. It sounds hokie to me because I'm not sure I agree you can cool the core without cooling everything else at the same time. The extremities are generally going to tend toward the temp of the trunk because it is the center of blood flow and is a large mass.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

I wonder how effective it will prove when used on undergrads fooling around in the wellness center?

I predict that the manufacturer$ and purveyor$ of the device will find that it i$ very effective, indeed. I'm $ure it re$ults in Awe$ome Ripped Ab$.

[And for what it's worth, I would love to see physiometric data on the device's actual performance. (Seriously, I would. My current research focus is on hypothermic neuroprotection.) Dropping the "core temperature" of a healthy, pumped-up 70kg male requires serious heat exchange.]

[Steve Hill]

I'm trying to decide whether I am buying the concept. It sounds hokie to me because I'm not sure I agree you can cool the core without cooling everything else at the same time. The extremities are generally going to tend toward the temp of the trunk because it is the center of blood flow and is a large mass.

You can believe what you want to believe. I've used it, it works. I used it during a training session in an infield that measured 112°F at the peak, 94°F when we started 2.5 hours prior. The nice thing is since you still perceive heat over the entire surface of your body, less the hands, the body does not shut down circulation to the limbs like it would if you immersed them in, say, an ice water bath. YMMV.