Icing injuries is ubiquitous. As soon as an injury occurs, it’s get out the ice! But what if it’s all a lie? What if the sports therapy community has been operating under an assumption that is costing you time, energy, and health. Icing injuries is an urban myth.
Professional athletes are very stressed out people.
They’re paid to perform, to be at peak every time they play. If they’re stressed out, they won’t perform. Muscles go all tense. The mind numbs. It makes it easy to become injured.
Only by being relaxed will they perform at peak. Then the body works and does what they want it to do. The mind is clear and they have vision.
Vision isn’t from seeing through your eyes. It’s something very different. It’s another sense. It’s combined with imagination and determination. It’s drive. It’s faith that things will turn out fine. It’s not letting fear or doubt enter the picture.
That’s why, for instance, since it’s football season, a running back can run through a crazy crowd of HUGE defensive linemen and make a 30 yard run or a quarterback can suddenly see a way out of the pocket to a lone receiver way out there in the far side of the field.
It’s not because they saw the way, it’s because they used their intuition, their gut, to find their way to their goal.
This is life.
Icing injuries is shutting down your ability to heal quickly. the first aid protocol, RICE, compromises your recovery. There is finally controversy about the merits of #icinginjuries. Finally I say, because a knowledgeable Chinese sports medicine doctor would never recommend icing injuries.
Here’s an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Rapid Injury Recovery: How Elite Athletes Can Immediately Remove Pain and Have a Long Sustainable Career where I talk about the danger of icing injuries.
“In 2004, a literature review (1) on the ability of icing to affect soft tissue injury healing looked at 22 eligible randomized controlled studies. The goal was to determine if ice was actually helping and the results were mixed at best:
- Ice alone was better for pain after knee surgery when compared to no ice, but swelling and range of motion didn’t improve.
- Ice alone was no more effective than rehabilitation only with regard to pain, swelling, and range of motion.
- Ice and compression were better than ice alone at pain reduction.
“In total, eight studies compared the difference between ice and compression and compression alone. They found very little difference between the two.
“The researchers concluded that “based on the available evidence, cryotherapy [icing] seems to be effective in decreasing pain, but evidence is scant for any further conclusions.
“Another review using many of the same studies had similar findings, noting that the vast majority of the available studies purporting to examine the effect of cryotherapy on soft tissue injury employ surgery patients with open injuries. The authors stress the need for more research using patients with closed soft tissue injuries – such as sprains and strains – rather than surgery patients.” (2)
“There’s a BIG difference between these two types of injuries! And there’s also another big problem. They found these alarming side effects due to icing:
- Skin burns and nerve damage AFTER only 20-30 minutes of cooling. This causes LONG-TERM problems.
- Your muscles will tighten up and shut down when you ice too often.
- It affects muscular motor performance!
- Your blood vessels will also contract, which reduces blood flow and slows down recovery.
- It can also create too much scar tissue (3), which by the way is a REASON often given for many knee and shoulder surgeries!
“There really isn’t enough research to prove that icing alone works. Even so, what do most people — including athletic trainers for professional sports teams — do? They reach out for ice as soon as there’s an injury.
“Do you realize how much damage icing injuries has actually done to an untold number of people?
“In fact, Dr. Gabe Mirkin, MD, who coined the phrase RICE back in 1978 in his book, The Sports Medicine Book, P. 94, has recently said in a blog of his on March 14, 2014, “Coaches have used my “RICE” guideline for decades, but now it appears that both Ice and complete Rest may delay healing, instead of helping.” (4) In the article, he mentions several studies ranging from 1999 to present day that cast doubt on the use of ice as an effective tool of healing. These are studies that EVERYONE should be made aware of. I’ll list them in my bibliography for further reading.
His main points are:
- Inflammation cells go to injured cells to begin the healing process.
- These cells act much like the ones that go to tackle cold and flu viruses.
- Ice keeps these healing cells from entering damaged areas.
- Steroids reduce inflammation, therefore stopping the healing process.
- Almost all painkillers also get in the way of the healing process.
- Ice decreases strength, speed, endurance, and coordination.
Even though he recommends vastly scaled down use of ice, I still maintain that ice has NO place at all in the treatment of your injuries. You might as well get the job started right away. Why put it off? There is another much safer way to bring down the swelling and heat.”
Instead follow my instructions here.
Here’s the article that Dr. Gabe Mirkin wrote in his blog earlier this year.
There is no scientific evidence for icing injuries. Compromise has no place in an elite (AND all other) athlete’s life, especially when we’re talking about injuries and health. First thing to do is: stop icing injuries and tell everyone that and why.
Icing injuries is an urban myth. It’s doing you more harm than you can imagine. Stop icing injuries NOW!
Do you want to merely manage your injuries or do you want to completely recover from them?
Do you want treatment for your injury that gets you back in the game fast, without compromising your health the rest of your life? Most conventional sport medicine jeopardizes your health. It’s battle field triage – saves life and hopefully limb – but it doesn’t ensure quality of life. Think about that.
Do you want to be stronger or do you want to be weaker?
Do you want treatment or do you want solutions?
Answer these questions. It may reveal a lot to you and also make you think about whether you REALLY are getting the quality of medical care you deserve!
Stop icing injuries today. There is a vastly more effective way to deal with your injuries.
Have an AWESOME day!
Dr. Joanny Liu, TCMD, RAc, P.Eng. Dr Joanny Liu “Best Selling Author and founder of Extraordinary Sports Medicine, where we help athletes reverse injury, get back in the game they love and improve their quality of life.” Best selling book at: Heal Your Concussion: How to Quickly and Effectively Get Back in the Game Remember, we’ve got two books about healing concussions in Amazon: Knock OUT Concussions, Heal Your Concussion: 21 Days to Brain Health, and Dr. Joanny’s new book, Heal Your Concussion: How to Quickly and Effectively Get Back in the Game is NOW live on Amazon!
