PlusLife Ice Bath Review – Premium Cold Plunge For Gyms And At-Home Recovery

Is a cold shower as good as an ice bath? If you are new to using cold water immersion as a therapy for recovery from exercise or training the mind with the discomfort of cold, then a cold shower is a fantastic place to begin. Not surprisingly, this is where most people start the cold plunge journey.

The good news is, if you’re not living in a tropical area where your tap water sits at a warm temperature, a cold shower will offer some benefit of cold plunge. As a rough guide, if it doesn’t take your breath away just a little bit, it’s not cold enough. If you are looking for the real deal and to get all of the potential out of ice baths, then look to progress your practice into proper icy water from.

A cold shower is a cheap way to start your cold plunge practice too, it costs nothing and also gives you the chance to cycle through hot and cold quite easily for some contrast therapy. Spending 2 minutes under a cold shower every morning for a month is a good chance to wake you up very quickly for one, and to build some tolerance before you move onto a proper ice bath.

After our experience with Wim Hof breathing and attending an ice bath workshop in Sydney, Australia this is when we felt the real potential of using an ice bath like PlusLife for cold therapy. You are floating on a whole new world after the mix of breathing, cold and movement. 

Overall, cold showers are a starting point for an absolute beginner, but the PlusLife compared to cold showers is a whole different experience and benefits. Cold showers will give you about 59F (15C) of temperature whereas the PlusLife can get you down to 2.5 degrees celsius which is where the real gains are at for cold plunge benefits.

PlusLife FAQs

How cold does the PlusLife Ice Bath get?

The PlusLife minimum temperature is 2.5 degrees celsius. Once the min temperature is set, it is beneficial to make use of the insulated cover that comes with the PlusLife to maximise the energy efficiency of the ice bath and keep the temperature low without much work from the chiller unit, as well as helping keep debris and dirt out of the water if it is set up outside.

Is an ice bath better than a cold shower?

Short answer: yes. For the most benefits out of cold water therapy as possible, it is best to build up to using a temperature like the PlusLife can give you with its built in chiller unit. A cold shower is a great place to start for newbies, and the PlusLife or an ice bath chilled with ice bags is a good place to work towards.

How much is a PlusLife cold plunge tub?

The PlusLife Ice Bath will cost you $6200 when you use our code GURU, which includes free shipping within Australia. For ice bathers shopping from USA, it may be smarter to check out The Plunge which is the closest PlusLife alternative which ships free in the US and can get down to 3.8 degrees F.

The PlusLife Commercial XL ice bath will cost $9350 for the cold only version while the hot and cold version costs $9850.

How long should you ice bath for?

Cold water therapy is definitely not an exact science. The ideal amount of time to spend in an ice bath is dependent on your tolerance and the temperature of the cold plunge. 

Most experts recommend spending at least two minutes in an ice bath to get any sort of benefit from cold water immersion. When we plunge, we usually try to get our cold plunge tub down to about 45F (7 degree celsius), give or take 2 or 3 degrees and accumulate about 10 minutes worth of time spent in the ice bath for each cold plunge session.

It is definitely recommended to individualise the amount of time in an ice bath and temperature used, and don’t be embarrassed to start with cold tap water or a cold shower. Two minute intervals exposing to the cold then warming up naturally or with a sauna, is a good recommended timeframe to work with as a cold plunge protocol. Work yourself up to colder temperatures and more time in the cold but be aware of your own body temperature and know that it is possible to get hypothermia from cold plunge if you don’t do it mindfully. 

Is hot or cold better for recovery?

When conducting exercise recovery, it is important to know what you are recovering from, your recovery time frame and when you are next needing to be performance ready. Heated therapy like sauna and sauna blankets compared to cold therapy like ice baths and cryotherapy for recovery produces different physiological responses, although both can be good. When comparing sauna vs ice bath for recovery, it is important to understand what type of exercise you are recovering from, how long you have to recover and when do you next need to perform.

As a general rule of thumb, we tend to utilise cold plunge more around endurance based exercise, races, games and recovering from cardio style workouts but avoid ice baths around strength training as it can produce negative results and prolong recovery instead. Heated therapy we use more around both endurance and strength training, Crossfit workouts and olympic lifting days as the science suggests that heat therapy can be beneficial for improving restoration of muscle function, restricting muscle atrophy and decreasing soreness and swelling. 

Although there is no clear science behind contrast therapy at this stage, we have also experienced some very beneficial results from combining the ice bath with sauna using 3-5 minutes of cold plunge with 5-10 minutes of sauna and notice marked improvements in sleep, reduced muscle fatigue and soreness, increased state of wellbeing and greater mental clarity. 

Is ice bathing safe?

Exposing yourself to cold water should be done in a somewhat controlled environment and should never be done to the point of danger. Hypothermia is a very real risk of cold plunge and exposing the body to cold temperatures should be done in a mindful way. Always gradually condition yourself to ice bath and cold plunge within your limits. If ice bathing is done with a deliberate protocol that keeps your body within its physical limits of temperature regulation, ice baths can be very safe and attract many benefits as we have mentioned. 

Exposing the body to any extreme temperature, whether it be from the cold of an ice bath or the heat of an infrared sauna, it can be dangerous if done in excess and if pushed too far. Certainly, if you are new to cold water exposure for recovery, we recommend making sure you are fit to do so by consulting a medical practitioner and always know your limits. 

When doing an ice bath at home, we try to only do so with a partner and don’t push it to the level of hypothermia (extreme low core body temperature) that is characterised by uncontrollable shivering, fumbling hands, loss of dexterity, unsteady gait, slurred speech, confusion and drowsiness. 

Final Word on PlusLife Ice Bath

The PlusLife Ice Bath definitely fills the gap in for people looking for a cold plunge Australia with its own chiller system for ready to go cold therapy for recovery. As you can see in this ice bath review, the PlusLife stacks up pretty well in price compared to some of the other cold plunge tubs like The Plunge and Blue Cube, especially if you are an Australian customer. It can be hard to justify dropping thousands of dollars on a cold plunge tub but in the long run, The PlusLife Ice Bath works out a cheaper ice bath setup than having to buy your ice to cool your cold plunge for each session.

Cold plunge is a practice that holds solid weight as a recovery practice and if you haven’t been incorporating it yet, we recommend the PlusLife Ice Bath to kick off the habit as you can adjust the temperature to a suitable level for your personal cold tolerance and slowly reduce the temperature. Sure, start with cold showers but definitely consider progressing to a self-chilling cold plunge tub like The PlusLife Ice Bath to start experiencing the true benefits of cold water exposure that will have you recovering from training faster, sleeping better, increasing pain tolerance, reducing body fat, increasing mood and developing mental resilience. 

The PlusLife is a relatively new cold plunge tub brand but as you will see it is extremely well designed and engineered and is ideal for both at-home use or for commercial spaces like gyms and fitness clubs. A positive of spending a large amount of money on these things is that we always find that when we financially commit to something we always end up using it a whole lot more to make the most of it!

Smarter recovery for humans…