For years now doctors and trainers have advised injured patients to “Throw some ice on that”, but should you really? The ice numbs the pain of the injury and you are told that the more your injury is iced the sooner and better it will heal. The ice feels like it is helping, but is it really healing you or just numbing the pain? and could it actually be hurting your process of healing. Everyone has iced an injury in the past whether it be a bruise, or a sprained ankle, or just general muscle soreness, but recent studies have found that maybe we shouldn’t just “Throw some ice on that”.

PainScience.com discussed a 2013 study in a recent entry titled “Icing for injuries, Tendinitis, and Inflammation”, which found that icing may actually hurt your recover. The study, published by the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2013, “Examined the influence of topical cooling on muscle damage markers and hemodynamic changes during recovery from eccentric exercise.” The study examined eleven male subjects after a small workout and concluded that ice not only didn’t help in the healing process of muscles after the workout, but actually made things worse. “Unexpectedly, greater elevations in circulating CK-MB and myoglobin above the control level were noted in the cooling trial during 48-72 hours of the post-exercise recovery period. Subjective fatigue feeling was greater at 72 hours after topical cooling compared with controls.” (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research) So what does this mean? Icing doesn’t actually help muscle healing, in fact according to this study it “Delays the healing”.  (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research) In other words, if you are sore after a workout and feel like “Throwing on some ice” you may not want to do that, it could delay your healing process.

So based on the evidence, you shouldn’t ice for basic soreness, but what about a muscle strain or a sprained ankle? The British Journal of Sports Medicine sees no benefit in that. In a 2012 study, the Journal found no hard evidence that icing truly heals or even aids in healing a muscle strain. The study observed and analyzed studies on animals, while also adding that the temperature of the muscles in these animals studies were much lower than in humans. This meant that the studies weren’t really applicable to humans and don’t prove that ice is an affecting treatment in muscle healing.  “Ice remains popular for acute muscle strain yet the evidence for its use is based on animal models which are not fully applicable to the clinical setting. Furthermore, few clinicians may consider factors such as the depth of the ‘damaged target tissue’ before initiating treatment.” (British Journal of Medicine) You can read the full study here. To clarify this study, the British Journal found that there is no PROVEN benefit to icing a strain or acute muscle injury. While ice may help, it also may not, which is enough to make us consider why doctors commonly recommend this “Panacea” as it was called by the Journal. In short, maybe ice helps, maybe it doesn’t, but there is no evidence that we should use it.

The first study is experimental, which proves that there are some negative affects of ice on muscles post-workout, but to be fair this doesn’t prove ALL icing is bad for you. The study was very specific to a light small workout, so it doesn’t prove all icing is bad. The second study was purely observational so it doesn’t prove anything, but that is the point of the study. There is not any hard evidence that icing works for acute muscle injuries, the study tried to seek proof that ice helped, and found none. The null hypothesis that “ice does nothing for muscle injuries” could not be rejected, therefore the study didn’t prove ice was effective or ineffective. While both studies could rule out reverse causation, because in this case, it is not applicable; Neither can prove all icing is bad or good.

So in conclusion, next time you are sore or strain a muscle and the doctor says “Throw some ice on that” should you do it? Based on the information, I don’t see why you would. If something has no proven effect, and may in fact make things worse, why waste your time? We have a limited amount of time anyway, so why waste 20 minutes icing an injury if there is no proof that it will help you heal any sooner. When it comes to injuries, after my research, I say “Don’t throw some ice on it”.