How to Do an Ice Bath
In a recent post, I discussed 5 ways of treating muscle soreness. One of them suggested ice baths as a valid way of not only treating, but preventing muscle soreness from workouts. Jenny, one of my students who is a doctor, the one who hasn’t faltered in her attemts to get me onto the ice bath regime, read my blog post and sent me a few methods for doing ice baths. I’ll post them here.
This one comes from an article from Runner’s World:
“First you have to get ready. Prepare your post work out recovery smoothie, protein drink or recovery bar, set it next to the bath. Collect reading material.“Overcome pain” would be a good choice, the latest edition of “Runner’s World” or “The Ultimate Fighter” works too. Undress. Put on a woolly hat, woolly scarf and mitts. Step into the empty bath. Turn on the taps for a lukewarm flow of water and sit. Once there is an inch of lukewarm water covering the bottom of the bath, turn off the hot tap and just let the cold water fill up the remainder of the bath to cover the legs completely, higher if you also did a hard abdominal muscle work out or arm training. Screech, shiver and curse a few times. The cold water is usually cold enough, but for the masochist reader, you can add ice cubes once the body is covered. Make sure you keep your hands dry. Wait two minutes. The shivering usually stops and you can reach over, grab the food and book, sit back, relax and enjoy for 15 minutes. Dream of future glory. No sane competitor will be doing this: You are the champion.”
And here is the method that Jenny uses herself from an article written by physical therapist and runner Nikki Kimball:
“Over the years, I’ve discovered tricks to make the ice bath experience more tolerable. First, I fill my tub with two to three bags of crushed ice. Then I add cold water to a height that will cover me nearly to my waist when I sit in the tub. Before getting in, I put on a down jacket and a hat and neoprene booties, make myself a cup of hot tea, and collect some entertaining reading material to help the next 15 to 20 minutes pass quickly.
Though scientific research exists to support the use of ice baths to promote recovery, no exact protocol has been proven better than others. In general, water temperatures should be between 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit, and immersion time should ranges from 10 to 20 minutes. Among top runners, I see ice bath techniques that vary within and on either side of these ranges. My favorite method is the post-race soak in a cold river or lake with fellow competitors.”
Or if you’re like me, you might have to get a friend to assist you and use the method as applied in torture sessions by certain military dictatorships as depicted in the following image:
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What, no pillow?
Entertaining article. For now I haven’t reached ice-bath soreness level in training. Usually just the give me the “800 mg of Ibuprofen” stage…
Sounds to me his cure is worse than the illness. If I get home from training what I want to do is to just relax and unwind (I usually am pretty pumpted up after training, to the point where it's sometimes difficult to get to sleep at a decent hour). I find muscle-soreness is actually a good feeling: you know you've worked hard and that you actually used some muscle-groups that are otherwise pretty passive, if the only therapeutic benefit from this method is that it reduces soreness I'm going to pass. But then again to each his own.
I am interested in how you'd deal with joint-ache though, my sensei has the habit of applying locks in a pretty harsh manner and sometimes my joints ache after a good locking-session (it's much preferable to be the uke when it's just throwing or hitting, even getting choked out is better than experiencing excruciating pain over and over again). Ah well, what does not kill me only makes me stronger. Can't wait to become sensei myself though (evil grin).
Jenny (my doctor student) advises using the ice bath or ice shower method for reducing joint pains as well. But if you're not a fan, you can try a combination of methods for treating minor inflammation including ice packs, ibuprofen, and arnica gel (a topical anti-inflammatory agent). I keep all three in my first aid kit and have had great reviews from students that I have used this combination on, particularly when they are used immediately when an injury occurs.
Interesting, although I suppose it would be enough to just dip the injured/sore joint into a bucket of icewater instead of immersing your whole body in it. I really need to find a way to let my joints recover quicker because they're usually still sore from teh last training and I can't imagine this will good for my health in general so I'll try your ice-method. From my experience I do know this gets better after a while you get used to the pain (I do have a pretty high pain-tolerance and pain in itself is nothing aslong as no serious injuries are sustained) and it actually makes your joints stronger. I think this is called Wolf's law: if you damage bone and let it heal it'll actually be stronger than it was before. Don't know if this applies to joints too though since there are also ligaments and other muscles involved. Perhaps your doctor-friend knows?
What is your policy on joint-locking? Do you think it's acceptable to go progressively harder in training (provided you don't break of dislocate the joint of course) or not? I'd think elevating pain-tolerance would in itself be a good thing but then again I don't want to get artritis when I get older.
As I said my sensei usually has little mercy with me (he does have control so I do know he'll never go beyond the point of serious injury but it still hurts like hell), I think he does this both to toughen me up and to show the rest of the class the techniques actually work (if they work on a trained individual who's used to them for sure they'll work on your average joe). I do tap as soon as I feel any pain at all (to prevent worse) but I can't wuss out and tell him he's really hurting me, he's a good guy and I know he's not a sadist, and besides I know he suffered quite alot as uke to his sensei so I suppose this just goes with the territory.
The main problem is that he doesn't actually relieve pressure during techniques (constant pain-level) and he likes to do a whole series of locks in a row (you do have to be able to react instantly and flow with his energy in order to negate his attempts to escape). This in itself is not a bad thing but after the fifth time my wrist or arm is so sore I'd rather punch him than allow him to lock me again. I did find a partial solution though: under the guise of needing to see the technique myself (which is only partially true since I do know the great majority of the techniques we're currently practicing) I managed to convince him to select another uke from time to time. Too bad for them of course but at least I'm not the only one that has to suffer. I'm getting pretty tired of being the guiney-pig for the whole class and I do have my limits.
From what I understand, joints are not like muscles and bones. If you keep allowing them to be over-stressed (like by repeated minor joint injuries from overzealously applied locks) you can eventually get repetitive strain injury (RSI) and even early arthritis. I've known a number of Jiu-jitsu students who have trained for years/decades who experienced this. If you are still sore in the joints from one training session to the next you are likely sustaining minor injuries. You can help protect your joints by strengthening the muscles around them, but really, the best thing to do to avoid getting RSI and preventing arthritis at an early age is to make sure people back off the amount of pressure they're putting into the locks they apply on you. Insist that they respect your tap.
If I were you, I would see a doctor and get his or her medical advice then talk to your Sensei and fellow training partners, citing your doctor's advice for support, and politely ask them to limit the amount of stress they put on your joints.
In the past, there wasn't as much understanding about RSI and how it affects the body in the long term. If your Sensei comes from a "school of hard knocks" philosophy, he may just be applying locks on you the same way he had them applied on himself as he had come through the ranks. It's up to you to take care of your own body and inform your ukes and your Sensei about any physical issues you're having so that you can continue to do Jiu-jitsu in the long term. It would suck if you had to give up training because of something you could have prevented. And you really don't want to get early arthitis either. The people I've known who got it as a result of Jiu-jitsu are now so sensitive to joint locks that can barely take any pressure at all.
One other thing. I've found taking glucosomine sulfate supplements helps. It is an supplement that is helpful for joint support. And on days when there is accute pain. MSN supplements are good in combination with glucosomine sulfate.
Thanks. This sounds like sound advice, I'll give it a try. I'll check out this supplement you suggested. I don't know if it's really necessary to go to a doctor with this though: he'll just tell me to take it easy on the joints and when I tell my sensei it's enough he should just accept it. The problem is that ever since he started teaching he almost never acts as uke and this sort of distorts your view on what constitutes excessive pain and what not. Serving as uke also act as a check on your own use of force: if it's his turn later on you won't be inclined to use alot of force since you know he'll just give back what he got.
The way we normally train is to put pressure the first time you do a technique (to check if it really works or not), after that you just position the lock but do not really apply it forcefully. This is easier on the joints and it tends to speed up things (instead of getting thrown to the mat everytime you just bend your knees and you mimic the effect the lock would have if it was fully applied). Believe it or not this is even the policy my sensei promotes, if only he would abide by it himself! Old habits die hard I guess. Perhaps he really doesn't realise how freakin' painful his locks are (technically perfect and spot on, if you add power to the mix and if you continue to press ever after the tap-out it's just pure torture), others in my club say the same (they actually feel sorry for me since I get to bear the brunt of it) so it's not just me. Anyone who is foolish enough to claim locks do not work should train with him for a while: either he'll break/dislocate your joints (most likely resultint in multiple fractures) or he'll have you whimpering in pain while possible losing some body-fluids. Can't wait to learn the counters to these locks, do you practice this in your club?
Today I went training with a friend, we went easy on eachother and still had fun and got things done. I've got nothing against pain and it comes with the territory but there are limits and my health is more important to me than vain pride or machismo. I'll have a chat with sensei before next week's training-session.
By the sounds of it, you are a student of Shorinji Kan Jiu-jitsu, am I right? This means that your probably learn a set of counter-locks as counter to locks being applied to you, if my guess is right.
In my main style (Can-ryu), when someone tries to apply a lock on we use the opportunity to move in and attack them with a strike while their both hands are tied up.
Here's a funny story related to that. At my orange belt grading, in Shorinji Kan the grading panel was curious to see if I knew any of the green curriculum, so they told my uke (a shodan) to try and apply various locks, telling me to counter them. I know now that they were looking for counter-locks, but I had no idea at the time what types of counters were expected, so I resorted to what I knew. As the Shodan grabbed my wrist to do a wrist lock, I immediate moved in and delivered a palm heel strike to his nose. Unfortunately, since he wasn't expecting it and happened to lean in a bit while applying a lock, I ended up landing the strike unintentionally. His nose was purple the next day. It was only after that I found out that the grading panel was looking for counter locks. Ah, well! The Shodan took it all in good humour.
Good luck talking to your Sensei! I'm sure he or she is reasonable and if you add the fact that everyone seems to have been struggling with this problem, I'm sure they'll understand.