Optimising Recovery for Winter Sport Athletes
Insights heading into the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.
A 2024 narrative umbrella review published in Sport Sciences for Health systematically evaluates the full spectrum of post-training and post-competition recovery strategies used by elite winter sport athletes to determine what works, what is overhyped, and what the evidence-based hierarchy of recovery should look like. The verdict: sleep and nutrition sit at the top, cold water immersion is the standout physical tool, and some widely used methods, including stretching, sauna, and contrast water therapy, have little to no robust evidence supporting their use. Let’s dive in.
Aim
The review aimed to critically evaluate the clinical and scientific validity of post-training and post-competition recovery methods, compare their effectiveness across the specific physiological demands of different winter sports, and produce ranked, actionable recommendations. The authors also addressed a gap in the literature: despite widespread use of recovery tools among elite athletes, few studies had comprehensively compiled and compared these strategies within the high-stakes context of Olympic preparation.
Methods
The team performed a systematic PubMed search using a broad set of keywords spanning nutrition, sleep, cold therapies, massage, compression, stretching, electrical stimulation, and more. One author screened all titles and abstracts, while the full research team selected papers for detailed review. Inclusion required studies to be conducted on athletes or healthy participants, focused on fatigue, DOMS, performance, illness, or injury prevention, and published in English. Studies involving injured or clinical populations were excluded. Where no meta-analyses existed on a specific method, original research papers were included to fill the gap.
Results
Sleep and Nutrition: The Non-Negotiables
The two most strongly supported recovery tools are not found in an ice bath or a massage gun. They are sleep and nutrition, and the review is explicit that without these two foundations in place, almost no other method shows convincing evidence of meaningfully accelerating recovery.
On sleep, the research is stark: over half the athletes at the 2016 Rio Olympics reported poor sleep quality, athletes tend to achieve less actual sleep than non-athletes despite similar time in bed due to longer sleep latency and lower sleep efficiency, and those sleeping fewer than 5 hours per night were found to be three times more likely to catch a cold than those sleeping more than 7 hours. Young athletes sleeping fewer than 8 hours had nearly double the injury risk compared to those sleeping longer. The review recommends athletes aim for 8 to 9 hours of sleep nightly, with strategic naps of 20 to 90 minutes between 13:00 and 16:00 to top up total sleep, waking at least 30 minutes before training to avoid sleep inertia.
For nutrition, carbohydrate management sits at the core. Optimal glycogen storage requires 7 to 10 g of carbohydrate per kilogram of body mass daily, and the immediate post-exercise window demands 25 to 35 g per hour. A higher intake of 1 g/kg/hour can speed up glycogen replenishment when recovery time is short. Protein intake of more than 20 g per meal and more than 1.6 g per kilogram of body mass per day is recommended to support muscle repair and synthesis. Post-exercise rehydration should replace 150 to 200% of sweat loss within 4 to 8 hours, potentially with sodium-containing solutions to aid fluid retention.
Cold Water Immersion
Among all physical recovery methods, cold water immersion (CWI) at 10 to 15°C for 10 to 15 minutes emerged as the most consistently supported option for reducing muscle soreness and aiding recovery of muscle power. Reducing muscle temperature is identified as the key mechanism, with muscle temperature remaining low for up to 30 minutes post-immersion, provided athletes stay seated without towel drying. The review recommends starting CWI within 30 minutes of finishing intense exercise, avoiding towel drying afterwards, and sitting in a cool environment for up to 30 minutes to extend the cooling effect.
There is, however, an important caveat: regular CWI use during resistance-focused training may blunt gains in muscle mass and maximum strength, though it does not appear to impair aerobic performance or mitochondrial function. Athletes in strength-based training blocks should weigh this trade-off carefully.
Whole-body cryotherapy (WBC) at temperatures of -60 to -140°C showed DOMS improvements in roughly 80% of reviewed cases, but only about half the studies showed performance recovery benefits. CWI was rated as superior to WBC for reducing blood flow, tissue temperature, and DOMS, as well as being more practical and cost-effective.
Massage: Best for Soreness, Not Performance
Traditional massage showed consistent evidence for reducing post-exercise DOMS, particularly at the 48-hour mark when soreness is most pronounced, but its contribution to physical performance recovery was limited. The review recommends massaging each muscle group for 2 to 5 minutes (totalling 20 to 60 minutes), beginning at least 2 hours after intense exercise. Foam rolling demonstrated similar effectiveness for DOMS reduction. Massage guns with low-frequency vibrations under 40 Hz may ease muscle stiffness, but showed no significant effect on DOMS, fatigue, or lactate levels.
Active Recovery: Timing Is Everything
Brief sessions of 6 to 10 minutes of light active recovery (at roughly 65 to 75% of maximum heart rate) were more effective than passive rest for maintaining performance when recovery time between bouts was under 30 minutes. However, for recovery periods longer than 30 minutes, including next-day performance, active recovery showed no meaningful benefits over rest for DOMS, muscle damage, or metabolic markers. A notable caveat: active recovery may partially impair glycogen resynthesis, particularly in slow-twitch type I muscle fibers, so athletes need to be mindful not to compromise refuelling.
The Methods That Disappoint
Several widely used tools showed weak or inconclusive evidence:
Stretching had no significant effect on DOMS or injury risk across meta-analyses and reviews, and cannot be broadly recommended for recovery or injury prevention.
Sauna (both Finnish and infrared) lacks systematic reviews or meta-analyses on post-exercise recovery, with one study finding no recovery benefit after resistance training, and another showing sauna use impaired swim performance due to added thermal stress.
Contrast water therapy (CWT) yielded mixed and inconclusive results, with methodological limitations and uncontrolled placebo effects undermining confidence in the findings.
Neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) showed limited effectiveness compared to light active recovery, with some evidence it may even impair performance recovery in certain contexts.
Hyperoxia (supplemental oxygen) offers at best a marginal short-term benefit during intermittent exercise, with no evidence for supporting longer-term recovery beyond 12 hours, and cannot be recommended as a general recovery tool between training sessions.
Compression garments showed small to moderate effects on DOMS and are reasonable to use for up to 24 hours post-exercise, though their impact on performance recovery remains inconclusive.
Key Takeaways
The review’s overarching message is that most recovery gadgets and trendy modalities are outperformed by the basics. The hierarchy matters:
Prioritise 8 to 9 hours of sleep nightly, with strategic napping between 13:00 and 16:00 if needed.
Hit carbohydrate targets (7 to 10 g/kg/day) and protein targets (more than 1.6 g/kg/day), and rehydrate with 150 to 200% of sweat losses post-exercise.
Use CWI (10 to 15°C, 10 to 15 minutes) as the primary physical recovery tool for sports that generate high muscle soreness loads, but moderate its use during strength-focused training blocks.
Add massage (20 to 60 minutes, starting at least 2 hours post-exercise) for sports involving significant DOMS, such as alpine skiing and ice hockey.
Use brief active recovery (6 to 10 minutes of light exercise) between short-rest-period bouts, but don’t rely on it for next-day recovery.
Personalise. Different winter sports disciplines create different physiological demands, and recovery strategies should be tailored accordingly.
The authors also flag a key limitation: most underlying studies involved well-rested participants recovering from a single exercise bout, which doesn't reflect the more congested reality of Olympic athletes training multiple times daily. Some methods dismissed here might still hold value in elite contexts not yet well studied.
Reference
Edholm, P., Ørtenblad, N., Holmberg, HC. et al. Optimizing recovery strategies for winter athletes: insights for Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. Sport Sci Health 20, 1169–1182 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-024-01245-1
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