Cold Water Swimming-Benefits and Risks: A Narrative Review Cold water swimming (winter or ice swimming) has a long tradition in northern countries. Until a few years ago, ice swimming was practiced by very few extreme athletes.Ice swimming has been carried out for several years as a competition in ice-cold water (colder than 5 ° C). The aim of this overview is to represent the current state of advantages and risks in swimming in cold water. If cold water swimming practiced from experienced people with good health in a regular, graduated and adapted mode, this seems to bring health benefits.
For inexperienced persons, however, there is the risk of death, either due to the initial neurogenic cold shock reaction or due to a progressive decrease in swimming efficiency or subcooling. The overview can be downloaded below https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7730683/