Heat or Ice for Sports Injuries?

You’ve just gotten hurt after your most recent workout, and you really want to speed up your injury recovery time so you can get back to crushing your fitness goals. The question you’re now faced with is whether it’s best to use ice or heat for sports injuries. The reality is that both are effective options, but deciding which is more ideal depends on the circumstances.

Should You Use Heat or Ice for Sports Injuries?

When to Use Heat

Heat is best used to treat sore muscles and joint pain that has persisted for several days. This makes it especially useful for managing chronic injury pain and providing arthritis relief. Experts agree that it’s not ideal to use heat within the first few days of suffering an injury as it can actually worsen inflammation. Using heat too soon can actually increase injury recovery time and leave you on the shelf for longer. Heat is also great as a preventative measure—applying heat to your muscles as part of your pre-workout stretching routine will quite literally help warm you up.

When to Use Ice

Ice is best used as an immediate solution after an injury occurs because it helps check inflammation. Applying a cold compress to a strained muscle for the first few days helps speed up recovery and prevents further damage. Like heat, it can also be used in a preventative sense after your workouts. Applying ice after exercise can ease the symptoms of delayed onset muscle soreness and prevent inflammation from occurring.

When to Use Both

You may notice that there’s a complementary nature to using heat or ice for sports injuries. If you suffer from tennis elbow, use ice for the first three or more days, then apply heat to loosen and relax once the inflammation has subsided. By starting off with ice and transitioning to heat, you can speed up injury recovery and get back onto the court faster. In some cases, it’s not so much whether you should use heat or ice for sports injuries as much as it’s when you should use either one rather than the other.

Visit Livingston County Chiropractic Center for Injury Recovery

Soreness and injuries can quickly derail the momentum you’ve been building in your fitness journey. But Livingston County Chiropractic Center can get you back into the groove in Pontiac, IL. We offer several solutions to help you treat sore muscles, chronic pain, and sports injuries like tennis elbow. Schedule your appointment today and we’ll help you become your best self!

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