Hot Or Cold??

When you injure an area and it starts swelling, the cold stops the blood from rushing to that area. It makes it circulate differently so it stops swelling and then reduces. That is why you see them use cold on guys who injure their eyes in the ring.

I think hot would be for muscle injuries. The heat relaxes the muscle like after a hot bath.

 

Heat for long term injuries that have been going on for extended period of time.

Cold right after you get any injury.

 

The cold is for the time the injury occurs, prevent swelling and whatnot. Up to about 72 hours.
Heat is for after that period, long term injuries.

Both these things are for comfort only, they do not HEAL injuries. Reduce swelling and pain, yes. My physiotherapist told me this, and he has spoken truth many times in the past about sports and injuries, he's been involved in IAAF and other sporting meets.

 

The RICE-principle is the best way to treat a sudden injury to either muscle, tendon, ligament or other type of tissue.

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- Do not contract/use/flex/move the injured muscle, tendon or ligament. This is pretty self-explanatory.

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- Reduce inflammation by partially cutting off blood circulation to the injured area and hindering neural signals from being heightened to a certain degree (pain relief).

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- Wrap a bandage over the injured area. This limits swelling.

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- Raise the injured bodypart above the level of your heart, reducing blood flow (e.g. if you injure your thigh, elevate your leg while lying down)

Heat packs are better used for small tissue-tears, such as soreness. Before workouts is a good timing. If used on a greater injury, it might provide uneccessary swelling and pain in contrast to the RICE-method. Always ice after workouts in these cases, too.

 

I had some recent experience with this. Putting ice on an injury does help healing because it reduces swelling, and swelling hinders healing. The heat theoretically should increase blood flow to the area, but the benefits are probably not too noticeable. Still, it is better than not doing anything. So ice first, heat 2-3 days later. But don't ice for over 30-40 mins at a time.

 

That makes the most sense to me.

You get injured and your body rushes all the blood to the injury. However it is not good because it obviously starts swelling. The ice gets the blood away from the injury and reduces swelling. However, once the swelling has gone down you'll want to return blood to the area, increasing circulation, then you throw the hot **** on.

We all got this cold-hot **** worked out in the end.

 

but why would you want the blood away from the injured area, unless youve got a big cut and youd just be bleeding wouldnt you want it to help in the immediate healing process?

 

You want the blood away from the area to reduce the swelling. Your body goes into safety mode but when under trauma it goes crazy and sends too much blood rushing to the area.

 

Swelling causes pressure on nerve fibres, which leads to pain and disability.
When inflammation occurs, chemicals from the body’s white blood cells are released into the blood, ridding the body of foreign substances.
Some of the chemicals cause fluid leakage into the tissues, which causes the swelling.
Inflammation/swelling is actually a crucial process to help you recover, the funny thing is that it is a double-edged sword.
An out-of-control inflammatory response can actually destroy healthy tissue and thereby making things even worse.
It's all about keeping the inflammation under control, to relieve pain and hinder uneccessary tissue damage.
That's why use of the RICE-method is so effective.

When the inflammatory effect has decreased so much that, lets say, the swelling is minor, heat can be used to increase blood flow (and inflammation to a certain degree) to the area to promote faster recovery.