Ice and heat are popular treatments for sports injuries recommended by personal trainers and aging athletes. However, these two remedies are used for very different purposes. If your back hurts after a workout, chances are you should apply one or the other remedy -- not both.
How Cold Therapy Works
Swelling happens when the body responds to an injury by sending blood and synovial fluids to the site. This helps protect the injured area by restricting your movement while simultaneously supplying more of the materials your body needs to heal. However, too much swelling causes additional damage by making the injured area too restricted. Icing an injured area slows blood flow, which reduces the swelling. This can prevent inflammation injuries from happening and reduce the time it takes to heal.
How Heat Therapy Works
Heat relaxes muscles. Much lower back pain from overwork or stiffness is caused by muscles that are overly tense. Applied heat increases blood flow, with a resulting increase of oxygen and nutrients to the muscles. It also helps relax and stretch the muscles and other soft tissues, leaving the entire area more supple and relaxed. This can mean significant relief on its own, and is also used in combination with stretching, massage or chiropractic therapy, according to Spine-health.com.
Sore Back
Weightlifting back pains fall into two major categories: soreness and injury. Soreness is the inevitable result of the minor damage you inflict on any muscles when you work out with them. It passes in a few days naturally. Increased swelling immediately after your workout can intensify soreness later, meaning the best treatment is ice or other cold therapy immediately after your workout. This means no after-workout hot tub session. On the other hand, heat therapy -- including the hot tub -- can help loosen sore muscles in the days after your workout.
Back Injury
The other kind of back pain is an actual injury, ranging from a strained muscle to a damaged spinal disk. In nearly all cases, immediate icing helps mitigate the damage and reduce your recovery time. Periodic icing to keep swelling down may continue for several days or be a periodic part of your physical therapy. Heat therapy, if used at all, should be part of the later stages of recovery and used in conjunction with other therapeutic efforts.
References
- "The Sports Injuries Handbook;" Christer Rolf; 2010
- Spine Health: Heat Therapy
- "Healthwise Handbook"; Kaiser Permanente; 2009
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