Chicken has gradually become the main source of meat consumption due to its high protein content and low price. To address the industrial key points of moisture loss and quality deterioration of fresh chicken during storage. In this study, refrigeration at 4 °C served as the control group, whilst RP-I (cooling rate of 4.68 ± 0.01 ℃·min-1), RP-II (cooling rate of 9.13 ± 0.07 ℃·min-1) and RP-III (cooling rate of 14.86 ± 0.08 ℃·min-1) as experimental groups, with the aim of investigating the effects of rapid chilling pretreatment on water loss and freshness of chicken breast. Results indicated that rapid chilling pretreatment significantly lowered the decrease of shear force and the increase of TVB-N values, also lessened centrifugal and cooking loss, whereas enhanced inosine monophosphate (IMP) content of chicken breast during storage at 4 ℃. On day 7 of storage, the cooking loss of RP?Ⅲ group was significantly decreased by 14.59% (P＜0.05), the centrifugal loss was significantly reduced by 15.27% (P＜0.05), and the inosine monophosphate (IMP) content was increased by 25.12% compared with the control group (P＜0.05).These beneficial effects were attributed to reducing of protein degradation which was confirmed by decreasing of TCA-soluble peptide content, myofibrillar fragmentation index (MFI) values and fiber space, and also inhibiting ATPase activity. Furthermore, the inverse changes of the peak area percentages of T22 and T23 as well as higher and uniform hydrogen proton density of water molecules indicated that the rapid chilling pre-treatment reduced the water loss by lowering the transfer of immobilized water to free water in chicken breast. The results of this research provided technical support for the loss reduction and preservation of fresh chicken.