Indoor and outdoor use

If you’ve been on the fitness side of the internet long enough, chances are you’ve already heard about the benefits of cold water. Often dreaded by those unacquainted with the experience, ice baths are actually an invaluable tool for getting the most out of your post-run recovery — even Kipchoge is a fan.

While plunging into ice cold water isn’t the most pleasant sensation at first, ice baths can be an effective means of boosting circulation, decreasing inflammation, and helping your muscles recover more quickly — and you’ll acclimate pretty quickly once you start a routine.

With a quality ice bath tub, you can transform the way you recover, which will ultimately translate to more time doing the workouts you love. So if you’ve comitted to an icy New Year’s challenge, here’s our pick of the best tubs to get your endorphins flowing.

For more great recovery tools, check out our picks for the best foam rollers, massage guns and compression boots.

What are the benefits of an ice bath?

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below, RW best foam rollers, a physical therapist and spokesperson for the American Physical Therapy Association, about how our bodies' responses to the intense cold benefit us and our fitness.

According to Gillanders, an ice bath works by temporarily constricting the blood vessels in your muscles, which serves two purposes: First, it reduces inflammation immediately, and second, it forces your metabolic waste-filled blood to move through your system more efficiently.

Once you step out of the frigid water, fresh, waste-free blood rushes back into your muscles, helping the recovery process run more smoothly in the long term. Ice baths are also said to have a positive impact on the central nervous system, which can help improve sleep, another occasionally overlooked facet of recovery.

But the unfortunate reality for many of us, especially flat dwellers, is that you likely don’t have a bath tub big enough to submerge your entire body without spilling over or errantly kicking the faucet (if you even have a tub at all). The average home bath tub tends to contain 80kg of water, whereas a dedicated ice bath either has more volume or at least stands taller, allowing you to dip your shoulders in without your knees poking out on the other side.

As you move up in price, proper ice bath tubs can also take a lot of the guesswork out of controlling your water temperature. Many are insulated, which keeps the water in an ideal zone for longer, and some even cool your water without adding ice at all. Some can also fold up or deflate for easy storage, and others look right at home as a piece of backyard furniture — no cover necessary.

Types of ice bath tubs

Inflatable

There are lots of ice bath tub options on the market. On the more affordable side, you can get an inflatable or folding tub. These are great for travel or using at home and are generally pretty comfortable to sit in, but they tend to fail faster than solid tubs, and you have to refill them more often.

Solid

For something more permanent, look to solid tubs. These are a bit more expensive, but they can pretty much last a lifetime. They are usually made from heavy-duty plastic that can withstand the elements, and even though you still have to change the water from time to time, they drain more easily than the inflatables.

Smart

At the upper end of the price range, there are spa models. These can be very expensive — sometimes costing upwards of £10,000. These are much more permanent fixtures and are a great investment if you’re an avid ice bath-er. Most spa-style models come with filters, which means that you won’t have to change the water once your tub is filled, and most can accommodate both ice baths and hot ones.

How we selected

As a London-based journalist, I don’t have the capacity to test all of these tubs myself. As such, I used feedback from external testers and the hard numbers I could gather through research to keep this round-up objective.

Luckily, there are a few factors that are easy to figure out without seeing a product in person. In the case of cold plunge tubs, those factors are high water capacity, a sturdy exterior that won’t leak, evidence of some kind of insulation, and an easy means to drain the water and/or keep it clean.

Once we sorted out the baseline necessities, we looked at various situations in which you might want to have an ice bath tub handy. Need one to stay in place through the winter? Want one to bring with you to a race? We looked for the options that best filled each of these roles and others.

To keep our reasoning for each pick as redundant as possible, we scoured for bad reviews of these tubs online — and from our external testers — to make sure we weren’t missing any glaring quality control issues. Ready to take the (cold) plunge? Read on to see some options that will keep you happily frigid for years to come.