Don’t RICE If You Have Muscle Pain

RICE- Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate is one of the most popular protocols for pain management and relief.
This is what everyone runs to as soon as they have an injury.

RICE protocol was invented  by Dr. Gabe Mirkin, and introduced in his bestselling SportsMedicine book in 1978.

In 2014 however, Gabe Mirkin took back his words. While RICE is a great way to reduce inflammation and inflammation related pain, it actually slows down the healing of the underlying muscle.
He realized that inflammation has a major effect on the healing process.


Here is what you should focus on instead if you want to speed up your recovery from an injury -

1. Don’t RICE

2. Protect - While rest is not exactly what you want to do, you want to ensure you do not want to overload the muscle enough to cause more damage. The idea should be to keep moving the muscle to drive more blood flow to the affected area to speed up the healing process.

3. Load Optimally - Make sure to load the muscle regularly to ensure you do not lose the muscle’s ability to perform tasks. A lot of times when people don’t load the muscle for long, the muscle heals, however it becomes weak and returning to your sport, or to your regimen can take much longer.

4. Hot/ Cold Therapy - Alternating temperature therapy (icing and heating alternatively) is a great way to drive blood flow to the affected region in bursts and regulating overall blood flow through the body. All healing in the body is done by the blood. More blood reaching the affected muscle means faster healing.

Simply put, the body's response to any injury should be promoted and not stopped. The body over years and years of evolution has figured out ways to heal itself from most common injuries.
This response, as long as it doesn’t cause more pain, is good for the healing process.