Injury Control - Icing for faster recovery

Icing is still the best recovery method for injuries and pain.

No athlete goes out with the intent on getting injured, unfortunately, many times it’s hard to play with passion without experiencing the pain as well. Pain from losing, pain from a bad call and pain in your body are all common among athletes. While some pains can’t be remedied, pain in your body can and should be remedied as soon as possible.

Almost all injuries are painful, and some require medical attention. Others don’t require medical treatment, but rather improve with simple methods including rest and ice therapy. Icing your injuries may not immediately alleviate all of your symptoms, but it will help immensely with pain and swelling.

Icing is an essential part of injury management. It is an inexpensive, effective, and drugless method for relieving the pain associated with injuries, and injury management. A safe application of ice to your body part can relieve pain symptoms from sprains, strains, bruises, and tendonitis, and assist any situation in which superficial tissues are inflamed by some sort of trauma.

Icing, in its simplest form, is a pain reliever, without the side effects of drugs. It gives us an alternative form of therapy, by numbing painfully inflamed tissues. There are many uses of icing, depending on your injury. The most commonly iced acute injuries are ligament sprains, muscle sprains, and severe bruising. Icing is also used for injury prevention, used as a maintenance method to help reduce injuries in the future. You will also see icing to reduce swelling and inflammation, after surgery.

You should ice injuries for 20 minutes, and allow time before icing again. Icing lowers body temperature around the affected area, decreasing blood flow which in turn helps to reduce swelling. After icing, the body naturally rewarms itself, and as the blood flow increases, inflammation is slowly reduced. Use ice for the first 24 - 48 hours, and then alternate.

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