It’s a beautiful, cool fall day and your son and his friends decide to play a pickup game of basketball down at the park. After two hours of playing, you come limping home. Your hamstring is tight and sore. “I think it’s cramping up,” you say.
You might think it makes sense to put heat on it to loosen up the cramping to make it feel better.
WAIT!
It is better to ice an injury than to risk using heat and making it worse.
What happens when I get injured?
When an athlete is injured, the body’s response is inflammation. With inflammation comes stiffness. Even if the muscle is cramping, the muscle is injured. It might be cramping due to dehydration or it might be a response to a muscle strain. When a soft tissue is injured, whether it be a ligament sprain or a muscle/tendon strain, the body’s response is a breakdown of the tissue. How the injury happened will determine its severity.
The healing process starts as soon as the injury occurs, and happens in three phases: inflammatory response, fibroblastic repair and maturation-remodeling. Healing will not occur until all phases are complete. The more severe the injury, the more time it takes to go through the process.
Factors that slow healing include bleeding and edema, poor blood supply, tissue separation, muscle spasm, infection, health, age and nutrition, to name a few. Some of these factors cannot be controlled, but some can. Cryotherapy, or using ice, will assist in controlling the damage that occurs in the early phase of the injury.
What does ice do? Much of the damage done to the body is a result of altered circulation, limiting the amount of oxygen delivered to the injury site. Even cramping or muscle spasm causes this effect. Applying ice over an injury will decrease muscle guarding, pain, blood flow, metabolic rate and collagen elasticity. It increases joint stiffness and capillary permeability. Stiffness is good, as it stops us from moving the injured area too much as it heals.
Why is ice best?
Cold can be applied several ways. Crushed ice in a plastic bag covered by a thin towel provides the most comfortable application. Treatment time should be 15 to 20 minutes. Fingers and toes can benefit with less time. Other types of cryotherapy include ice massage or a cold whirlpool.
Talk to an athletic trainer to find out what works best for your situation. If you have impaired sensation or circulation or an open wound, talk to your physician before treating an injury with ice.
Watch my video below and check out other trainers’ tips here:
