Athletes and celebrities are all for it. Gwyneth Paltrow created an entire Netflix episode on how she swears by Wim Hof’s controversial methods. An ice compress seems like a no brainer, and it's commonly used to treat anything from playground injuries to toothaches.
But what are the benefits and potential dangers of icing? It seems to make sense when used to aid recovery and pain; calming inflammation is key to rehabilitating strained muscles.
Though you might need to muster up some courage to take the plunge, the method sounds simple enough– fill a tub with ice water, lean back, and relax. And for those who’re not prepared to go all the way, icing troubled areas seems an obvious choice.
Icing post recovery or muscle inflammation helps contract blood vessels and pushes pain and inflammation-causing lactic acid out of the system.
Though icing injuries took off in the 1970s with the popularisation of the RICE method, rest, ice, compression, elevation, and adding a cold pack to a sprain seems harmless enough, recent studies seem to counter this convention.
According to a 2021 study published in Applied Journal of Physiology where ice was used to treat muscle injuries in mice, researchers found that cooling injuries could possible do more harm than good.
“Because of icing after muscle injury, the infiltration of polynuclear and mononuclear cells into necrotic muscle fibres was retarded and attenuated, leading to the persistent presence of necrotic cellular debris,” the study reveals the icy approach could lead to delayed recovery.
“ A detailed analysis of regenerating myofibers by size distribution at day 14 after muscle damage showed that the ratio of small regenerating fibres to total regenerating fibres was higher in icing-treated animals than in untreated animals.” These findings suggest that icing following muscle damage blunts the efficiency of muscle regeneration by perturbing the removal of necrotic myofibers and phenotypic dynamics of macrophages rather than affecting myogenic factors.
To ice or not to ice? Icing to temporary numb pain and reduce swelling can be helpful. Most experts agree to limit ice bath or ice compress sessions to 10 minutes is enough to deliver temporary relief without causing any long term damage.