The Cold, Hard Truth About Ice

For decades, you’ve iced everything from sprained ankles to sore muscles, thinking it would help. But what if all that cold is actually slowing down the healing process?

- Lindsay Berra

There is a good chance you have an ice pack in your freezer. And whenever you feel back pain or knee soreness, you reach for it. You’ve been told that icing reduces swelling, speeds up healing and helps you recover from hard workouts that batter your body.

You’ve seen the best athletes in the world do it, too. Photos of LeBron James with his knees wrapped in ice packs and his feet in a bucket of ice – and plenty of footage of top AFL and NFL players doing the same thing after matches. Tiger Woods used to talk about ice baths during his comeback to the PGA Championship. Heck, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes recently appeared in a DirecTV commercial sitting in a tub of ice.

You think you’re doing it right, just like all those pros. But it’s been 50-plus years since Los Angeles Dodgers pitching legend Sandy Koufax appeared in a 1965 Sports Illustrated photograph with his left arm submerged in a vat of ice, an iconic moment in sport. Since then, no piece of published, peer-reviewed research has shown decisively that ice is beneficial to the healing process. In fact, many studies have shown the opposite. Ice can delay healing, increase swelling and possibly cause additional damage to injured tissues. That should stop you cold.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WHERE WE WENT WRONG