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It is critically important to apply ice and compression immediately after an injury. Studies show that recovery from an injury is directly related to how soon ice and compression are applied. More Ice Therapy facts »
Cryotherapy - ice therapy - why you should apply ice for just 10 minutes
Category: Cold Therapy
Jan 4, 2006
The next time you or one of your athletes inflame a knee joint, strain a muscle, or twist an ankle during a sporting activity, make certain that you ice the area correctly; inappropriate icing can sometimes make an injury worse rather than better.
'Many athletes spend 20 to 30 minutes continuously applying ice to an aching joint or throbbing muscle, but that can really be counterproductive,' states cryotherapy expert Dr Romain Meeusen of the Free University of Brussels. Meeusen's interest in the sometimes surprising effects of icing the human body began when he was growing up in the northern part of Belgium near Antwerp. As he played with snow as a child, lobbing snowballs into the grey waters of the river Schelde, Meeusen noticed that his bare hands were at first blanched and chilled by the snow but eventually turned bright red and warm, despite their continued contact with the ice-cold snow. The redness and warmness, of course, indicated that prolonged exposure to the icy snow had actually increased blood flow to his hands.
This seemingly strange reaction, in which ice or an application of cold actually increases the flow of blood to a region of the body, represents one reason why Meeusen is concerned about how ice is used therapeutically. After all, one of the goals of cryotherapy is to diminish the movement of blood to the site of an injury, so that there will be less chance of forming a sizeable haematoma (a swollen, painful area containing blood). Since ice can sometimes increase the amount of blood flooding into an injured part of the body, it must be used with caution.