Is Ice Therapy Useful For General Stiffness?

I am 42 and get that that age brings sometimes in the mornings....shoulders, knees sometimes etc

Unlike my ankle tendonitis problem, this stiffness doesn't give me pain just an acceptance I am getting old.

Is ice massage a useful tool for this sort of thing?


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Joshua Answers:


Ahhhh, the aches and pains of aging.

Is ice massage effective?

Well, ice massage is more for spot treatment. So yes, if you are targeting an area.

Time, gravity, and aging bring their own challenges to the body.

By default, we slowly get more like a dry crunchy sponge than the soft squishy sponge of our childhood.

One huge factor in the process is the Process of Inflammation.

Every little ache and injury and pain and soreness involves a process of inflammation. It is part of an ongoing, chronic mechanism that makes our muscles get tighter and a long downward spiral of other responses.

The tighter our muscles get, the more our connective tissue shrink wraps down, the less circulation we get into and out of our tissue, the less healthy our tissue gets.

Aside from injury and Tendonitis, this is the slow, 'natural' process of aging, and the mechanism of how we get frail, weak, less agile, etc.

Now granted, humans have a time limit. Our machine will indeed eventually wear out, or at least stop running. We will get weaker, slower, etc.

But, assuming it all goes well, it is possible to be healthy and strong as possible, up until our final months/years.

If we take the rights steps.

Nutrition.

Exercise.

Various things like massage and stretching.

And....finishing your showers on cold.

At the end of the shower, hot off, cold on. Whee!

I've been finishing my showers on cold every shower for the last 11 years. And I always will.

There are many many benefits, including exercising one's circulatory system, circulation in and out, it is invigorating mentally and physically, decreases pain and ache, and ends that whole thing where you get out of a shower and by the time you start getting dressed you're already sweating.

Ideally one lives in a place where one's cold water is actually cold. Cool water just isn't as effective.

So the answer to your question of 'Is Ice Therapy Useful For General Stiffness' is "YES".

For many reasons, Ice Dipping one's entire body, and/or finishing one's showers on cold, is very effective at keeping one's body healthy and happy.

Your brain probably won't like it, though. Even after 11 years my brain still screams "NOooooo!" as I reach to turn the hot water off.

Good times :)




Joshua Tucker, B.A., C.M.T.
The Tendonitis Expert
www.TendonitisExpert.com