I'd be willing to wager that you've been told to ice your ankle before when you've sprained it, right? Well, there's plenty of recent research that suggests that using ice may be actually slowing the healing process. Let's talk about it shall we?

First...a little history lesson
R.I.C.E was popularized by Gabe Mirkin, M.D. in 1978 in his book "The Sports Medicine Book" that him and another author wrote (since it's worth repeating a second time, in 1978!). Almost 50 years ago they thought that icing an injury would be beneficial to the body's healing process. Today, even the doc himself has come to change his mind.

In Layman's terms, swelling at the site of an injury isn't something to fear, it's a part of the healing process. Swelling is your body's response to injury. When there's an injured tissue the body sends blood, chemicals, and other cells to the site to promote immediate healing of the area. If you say...chose to place ice on that area...you are quite literally dampening the body's ability to start healing itself. It may even be further damaging that area!

Well...why did they think it was a good idea in the first place?
For one, there's an interesting story about the first limb reattachment surgery and the role ice played in that. Feel free to read about that here. In terms of Dr. Mirkin, he noticed that the athletes that used ice reported less pain at the site of the injury. Less pain seems to mean better healing, right? Well, he was wrong.

In 2013, a man by the name of Gary Reinl wrote a book called “Iced! The Illusionary Treatment Option.” Reinl cited numerous studies supporting the notion that resting an injury, while wrapping it tightly (which is the C in R.I.C.E) with ice, is ineffective in promoting the recovery process and "could also result in further damage to the affected tissues". Like any good doctor, Gabe Mirkin reviewed the book and realized his mistake and has since retracted the notion that R.I.C.E. is effective for helping injuries.

Ok, so no ice on injuries. What should I do then?
To quote a more popular thing as of late, "Movement is medicine". You've probably herd of the term Active Recovery as well. To try and keep this as simple as possible, movement helps the body pump new nutrient rich blood into the injured tissue along with draining the lymphatic system and clearing "metabolic waste" from the damaged area. I'd argue any movement is beneficial, but moving the injured area with some limitations is better. Let's use an ankle sprain as example. It's probably best to get that ankle moving as soon as you can, as long as it's pain free. If you're walking, doing ankle circles, whatever. Just make sure you're moving that joint as much as you can in a pain free range of motion. If you push a little too far, back off to prevent further damage to the area and go back to moving it in a way that doesn't aggravate it more.

We can get into what supplements help promote a faster healing process. We can talk about other therapy interventions (laser treatments, acupuncture/dry needling, massage, etc.), but we'll leave that for another day. I want the main take away from this article to be this...

If you're looking to heal faster from an injury. Lay off the ice and rest idea and get into the more active recovery state of mind. Monition is lotion after all!

If you want to dive into this topic a bit more, I'll leave some links below for you to read into to. Feel free to google "R.I.C.E. myth" or something of the sort as well. We'll see y'all in the next article!

The Sport Journal
Dr. Mirkin Blog
PHS Medical

If you are injured, stop exercise immediately and get it looked at by a professional. If there are open cuts to the skin, cleaning and closing the wound is a must. Having an experienced professional diagnose the injury to make sure no bones are broken or anything else of severe concern is going on is recommended.

R.I.C.E is a myth!