Comparison of cryotherapy and foam rolling on performance and lactate levels in futsal athletes

The use of Cryotherapy and Foam rolling methods is considered to speed up the post-exercise recovery process. However, so far there have been no studies comparing the two methods, thus the aim of this study was to compare the Cryotherapy and Foam rolling methods on performance and lactate levels in futsal athletes. This study uses an experimental method with a one-way crossover design pretest-posttest approach. The total subjects were 16 Amateur Futsal Players with an average age, 20.25 ± 1.23 years; height, 168.87 ± 2.02 cm; and weight, 54.61 ± 1.94 kg; BMI, 19.16 ± 1.01 kg/m-2. The results showed that foam rolling and cryotherapy had no effect on physical performance, but both methods could significantly reduce lactate levels. However, in this case the foam rolling method showed an improvement in the 20-meter sprint which was better than cryotherapy. Thus, the results of this study provide a recommendation for futsal athletes to use foam rolling in the post-exercise recovery process.


INTRODUCTION
Futsal is a sport that demands high physical performance, the average duration of competitive matches ranges from 75 -90 minutes (Barbieri et al. 2017) and the intensity of futsal players when competing has an average of 86-90% of the maximum heart rate (Rodrigues et al. 2011). Previous research revealed that futsal is an intermittent sport with a higher intensity than other intermittent sports such as football, basketball, handball and badminton (Niromlee . It is also proven that in a futsal match, players can cover an average distance of around 3000 -4000 m (Oliveira et al. 2013), and the distance traveled by players can increase up to 5000 m for professional players and 4,500 m for amateur players ). Jurnal SPORTIF: Jurnal Penelitian Pembelajaran,7 (2)  Rapid changes in direction such as sprinting, acceleration, deceleration, jumping, kicking, and tackling require the player to be able to maintain a high level of intensity as long as possible (Väkäkoitti 2017). In addition, a busy Futsal match schedule with short rest periods can affect the decrease in physical performance and fatigue in futsal players. Several studies have shown that after one match, futsal players experience a decrease in anaerobic performance (Moreira et al., 2015), lower body's muscle power, decreased running performance and neuromuscular variables (Miloni et al., 2016), a decrease in average pulse, heart rate maximum pulse, and high-intensity running distance when the match began to appear in the second half (Milioni et al. 2016). It shows that futsal causes tiredness (fatigue) and indicating a decrease in physical performance.
Several studies have revealed that fatigue can be a problem for athletes because in addition to reducing performance, fatigue can also increase the risk of injury (Cheatham and Stull 2018;Lawrence 2011).
Furthermore, previous literature implies that fatigue is a phenomenon of accumulation of lactic acid in muscle fibers, caused by high-intensity exercise (Finsterer 2012;Van Hall 2010). Thus, medical personnel and researchers in the field of sports should try to find appropriate and effective recovery methods to reduce lactic acid concentrations quickly, so that all athletes can recover and improve their performance (Pelana et al. 2021).
Some recovery methods such as Cryotherapy and Foam rolling (FR) has become a common practice in various types of sports, because both methods are considered to speed up the post-workout recovery process. (Cryotherapy) is cold water therapy with a temperature of 15 ° C which is carried out for 11 -15 minutes as a recovery method which is believed to be able to minimize fatigue and accelerate recovery after exercise (Casanova et al. 2018;Versey, Halson, and Dawson 2013).
While Foam rolling is a self-myofascial release (SMR) process, or selfmassage by applying pressure to the soft tissues in the opposite direction using body weight as a burden (Cheatham et al. 2015;Cheatham and Stull 2018). According to (Healey et al. 2014) the method of foam rolling can improve muscle performance and flexibility and can reduce muscle fatigue and pain.
In recent years, the two methods are most often used in various types of sports, but so far there has been no study comparing the two to determine which is more effective in the process of physical recovery after exercise. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare the recovery methods for Cryotherapy and Foam rolling futsal players in terms of the Vertical Jump, 20M Sprint, and post-exercise lactate levels so that the results of this study can be used as a reference for coaches in choosing an effective recovery method for athletes.

METHODS
An experimental method with an approach was one-way crossover design pretest-posttest used in this study. Where in one group will be treated using different recovery by being separated for 7 days as a washout from the first treatment. In the first recovery treatment, all subjects tried cold water bath (Cryotherapy), then after a 7-day gap, all subjects tried the method of Foam rolling. Treatment will begin after the subject simulates a futsal match with a time of 20 minutes x 2 rounds without any substitutions, and the parameters measured in this study include vertical jump, 20 meters-sprint, and blood lactate levels. These parameters will be measured after the match simulation and after running the recovery treatment. procedures, and subjects were asked to read and sign the informed consent.

Measurements and Research Procedures
Anthropometric Anthropometric data collection for athletes included age, weight, height, and BMI. For age data collection, it is done using a questionnaire that will be filled out independently by the subject, for height is measured using a stature meter, while for weight and BMI using OMRON Karada Scan HBF-375.

Vertical jump
Vertical jump Height measurement is rated with Vertec (Perform Better). Vertec is a measuring instrument for vertical jump in the form of a pole with a horizontal arrangement of iron such as a vane. The distance between the vanes is 1 inch. The lowest vane is adjusted to the height of the subject in a standing position with arms straight up. The jump height is calculated from the highest vane reach by hand that can be reached when the subject jumps.

Sprint test
Sprint test is carried out on a straight line with a length of 20 meters. Before doing the sprint, participants were instructed to run as fast as possible, measurements were taken using a stopwatch (Casio HS-80TW) supervised by 2 officers.

Lactate level
The lactate level check in this study is using accutrend Plus Portable analyzer. The measurement of lactate levels was carried out by taking a blood sample from the subject's fingertip with a test strip and immediately analyzed using the accutrend Plus Portable analyzer tool.

Cryotherapy
All participants tried to do a trial on some parts of the body by being immersed in cold water (cold water immersion). Immersion is carried out in cold water with a temperature of around 11-15°C for 11 minutes (Machado et al., 2016). Immersion is only done once, and the body part that is immersed is the lower limb, from the Spina Iliaca Anterior Superior (SIAS) to the soles of the feet (Zulkarnain 2014). Prior to immersion and to prevent shock due to sudden changes in temperature, the body part of the subject to be immersed is doused with plain water first. To keep the temperature between 11 -15°C, it will be monitored every minute with a water temperature thermometer (infrared thermometer). Immersion is carried out in a portable pool with a size of 2 x 3 meters.

Data Analysis
The data presentation will be displayed in the form of average and standard deviation. The analysis of the significance per group used oneway one-way ANOVA test. Meanwhile, to compare the two treatments,

RESULTS
The mean (±SD) of age, height, weight, FAT, and BMI of all players did not show any significant difference in the standard deviation (see table   1).  The results in table 2 show that the average vertical jump in the two treatments did not show a significant difference (p= 0.065). Furthermore, in the 20 meter sprint variable for the two recovery methods there was also no significant difference (p= 0.819), but the recovery group foam rolling experienced a higher increase in sprints when compared to the recovery group cryotherapy, respectively (cryotherapy -2%, and foam rolling -3%).
As for the lactate level variable, the two groups showed a significant Thirsia Ghea Yolanda Putri, Caly setiawan, Rahmat Hermawan, Elsa Ariestika Comparison of cryotherapy and foam rolling on performance and lactate levels in futsal athletes difference, where after conducting a recovery trial, both groups experienced a significant decrease in lactate levels (p= 0.001).

DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to compare the benefits of the two recovery methods, namely foam rolling and cryotherapy immediately after exercise. This study is the first to compare the two recovery methods for futsal players with the hope that coaches can choose the right method for their athletes to speed up the post-competition recovery process. The findings in this study provide evidence that foam rolling and cryotherapy did not improve performance on tests of 20-meter sprints and vertical jumps in futsal players. However, the recovery method foam rolling recovers sprint performance faster when compared to Cryotherapy.
Furthermore, foam rolling can lower the blood lactate concentration better than Cryotherapy.
The results of this study support several previous studies (Pelana et al. 2021;Radkin, Azryn, and Moliga 2010;Wiewelhove et al. 2019), which stated that FR had no significant effect on performance improvements such as Vertical jumps and 20 Meter sprints immediately after exercise, but FR will see the benefits after 24-48 hours later. Given this phenomenon, we might speculate that FR has no physiological effect on muscle. On the other hand, according to (Phillips et al. 2021) reported that the performance of the pro-agility test slightly increased after 1 minute of release self-myofascial continuous with foam roller in both male and female activities. The study they have done may be different from the result of this research and this is because the protocol in using foam rolling in each study is different. The different types of massages roller, duration, activity history in the sample, and varying activity levels make for a difference.
Furthermore, the recovery method cryotherapy also did not improve immediate post-exercise recovery as measured by 20-Meter jump and sprint performance. This was also conveyed by (Radkin et al. 2010), who stated that there was no significant difference in long-distance running performance after 12 minutes of immersion in cold water at 14 °C. the decrease in the performance of the 20 meter jump and sprint is caused by the water temperature being too cold and the immersion duration being too long so that the athlete feels uncomfortable due to the decreased body temperature, this can make the athlete unable to perform the test anaerobic optimally (Cochrane 2004).
An important finding of this study is that both cryotherapy recovery method and foam rolling method can reduce blood lactate concentrations equally. This study specifically demonstrated that both methods were effective in reducing lactate concentrations after exercise-induced muscle fatigue. Several previous studies revealed that the use of foam rolling and cryotherapy can induce structural, metabolic, or neural changes that lead to changes in muscle soreness or delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), decreased edema, increased blood lactate elimination, and better tissue healing, especially due to increased blood flow to the muscles (Casanova et al. 2018;Pearcey et al. 2015).

CONCLUSION
The results of this study show evidence that immediately after exercise, the use of foam rolling and cryotherapy methods has no effect on physical performance such as jumps and sprints of 20 meters postexercise, but for foam rolling, the recovery is faster process at 20 meters spins. In addition, both methods can also reduce lactate levels significantly. Thus, we suggest that coaches and sports scientists should recommend foam rolling compared to cryotherapy to their athletes after training sessions or matches in futsal.