10/09/2022
PEACE and LOVE over RICE all day now.
Check back a few posts from me to see what PEACE and LOVE is all about!
Icing sprained ankles actually slows the healing process down!๐คฏIf you want to optimize the healing process, movement is medicine. Find a movement you can do with relatively minimal pain (which at first may just be some ankle pumps and circles) and progressively increase movement/load as you can. The line โwalk it offโ truly applies here as sitting and icing can delay the healing process.
If youโd like to learn more about how to treat a sprained ankle, check out my recent YouTube video โHow to fix a Sprained Ankleโ and also read my blog โDonโt ice, walk it offโ on squatuniversity.com
I offer you one last piece of evidence. Every year a group of authors who are experts in the treatment of acute injuries gather and comb over the current scientific literature and establish position statements for the National Athletic Trainersโ Association (NATA). In 2013, they released one such statement on the recommended treatment for ankle sprains (an injury commonly addressed with the RICE protocol).
After evaluating all of the available scientific literature on possible treatments for ankle sprains, they assigned ratings from best โAโ to worst โC.โ Do you know which rating icing got? A big fat โC.โ They even wrote that โstrong clinical evidence for advocating cryotherapy is limited.โ
Do you know the treatments that were assigned a rating of โAโ? Functional rehabilitation! With this position statement, the profession that sees a majority of acute injuries among athletes acknowledged that icing is not as good as we all thought and rather the best form of treatment is moving and loading the injured area through rehabilitation exercise.
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