Are you sick of sore arms?

#1

this was from an article online. ICE DOESN"T WORK UNLESS YOU ARE INJURED. WHEN YOU ARE SORE DO NOT ICE.

Warming Up
No matter what cycle of the year, a pitcher’s warmup is absolutely essential, both to prevent injury and enhance performance. It should be active, involve the whole body, and take a minimum of 15 minutes. However, it can be an individual routine that each pitcher develops. (See Table One below.)

Perhaps the biggest mistake young pitchers make is to throw to warm up. The idea is to warm up to throw, not to throw to warm up. The warmup should include core work, a tubing routine, and coordination and movement exercises to warm up the whole body. Once these steps have been completed then the pitcher is ready to begin throwing.

The cooldown is also important after pitching. [b]When I began as Director of Conditioning for the Chicago White Sox in 1987, icing was very prevalent. It seemed every time a pitcher picked up a ball he had to ice afterwards. I noticed a common complaint the next day—they were stiff and sore. As I began to question the efficacy of icing I could find no research basis for icing a healthy limb.

Gradually, over the next few years, we began to discourage icing and replaced the ice with a structured cooldown designed to improve blood flow to the shoulder and elbow to speed recovery. This consists of 10 to 15 minutes on a stationary bike or a light 10-minute run, and remedial shoulder exercises, one set of 10 reps. If dumbbells are not available, three to four tubing exercises would work. We found less soreness and quicker recovery[/b]

#2

bottom line ristar pitchers have been icing for years and years and they all seem to be fine they also run and do the other tubing and stuff but as well as ice im not saying your wrong its just icing brings down inflamation which always occurs after pitching

#3

I think every pitcher has their own opinion on this matter. I’ll share my experiences with you guys.

From high school through college and three years of pro ball I always iced following a game performance. This past year I tried something different. Instead of ice, I would do my shoulder exercises and use a couple advil for the inflamation. This way I can keep the blood flow in my shoulder from the shoulder exercises and also kill the inflamation. Nonetheless, my arm felt much better the next morning than it used to the day after I iced.

Just a thought on what works for me.

#4

“From high school through college and three years of pro ball I always iced following a game performance. This past year I tried something different. Instead of ice, I would do my shoulder exercises and use a couple advil for the inflamation. This way I can keep the blood flow in my shoulder from the shoulder exercises and also kill the inflamation. Nonetheless, my arm felt much better the next morning than it used to the day after I iced.”

Nice.
I think this is where it’s going right now. I think ice was sort of a symbolic thing…sorta like putting a steak on a black eye…I know my son has never felt like he benefitted from being iced, but doing things to increase and assist blood flow has made his recupe time at least seem shorter.

#5

Icing didn’t become popular until Sandy Koufax started doing it…

And I do not believe icing helps at all. Icing is only to ease pain, IT WILL NOT HELP YOU HEAL! You are reducing blood flow to an area of your body that has been stressed which means that area will recover slower and break down faster.

Inflammation is natural and SHOULD happen. Icing is useful when TOO much inflammation happens (which should not if you are healthy).

I never ice and every day I feel the best I can.

#6

So what I’m hearing is that pitching always results in inflammation. But is that really true?

#7

Well without some study from somewhere, we cannot say for sure but I would speculate that inflammation does not always occur as a result of pitching.

Maybe inflammation on the tiniest scale occurs.

EDIT: Inflammation is basically the body’s attempt to heal itself by increasing blood flow and removing harmful pathogens.

Ice reduces blood flow.
Healing is reduced…?

#8

If most of you guys are saying icing is bad, what is your opinion on electric stim to the arm??

#9

There is a possibility that NSAIDs are bad for healing of ligaments, etc. So, although I can see where taking Advil would be more beneficial in the short term than icing, the long term effects may not be so good. You may be increasing the risk of ligament injury.

After making the statement in the first paragraph I decided to do a little research. According to animal studies piroxicam (sp?) was actually helpful in ligament healing over a short period of time but over a longer period made no difference. Cox-2 inhibitors actually tended to impede healing slightly. Ibuprofen didn’t seem to have much if any effect either way.

The one thing that was agreed upon was that there was a risk in taking Naproxen (Aleve) and other similar products when there was an issue with fracture healing.

My son took fairly high doses of Aleve over a long period of time to recover from pronator syndrome and although that was successful he ended up having a stress reaction in his elbow and had to take almost 2 months off from throwing and then rehab quite slowly. I think the Aleve played a small role in that.

#10

what are piroxicam and cox-2 in?

#11

Piroxicam (Feldene) is a prescription NSAID. The specific COX 2 inhibitor that was tested was Celecoxib. The study said the brand names for COX-2 inhibitors were Celebrex and Vioxx.

It would probably be interesting to see if taking piroxicam could potentially reduce the chances of ligament injuries in pitchers since they slightly injure their UCL on a regular basis. That would be a very difficult study to perform and assess however.

#12

Spencer,
Inflammation occurs when you pitch. My son had pronator syndrome and every time he pitched he had significant inflammation for a day or two. We knew that because he would feel pain in his medial nerve any time he threw with less than two days rest. The pain was the result of inflammation causing pressure on the medial nerve.

Now that he’s over the pronator syndrome he doesn’t get pain but you can bet there’s still inflammation going on. The better conditioned your arm is the less inflammation you’ll have, but it will still happen.

#13

That’s interesting because I never have over-inflammation problems.

I wonder what makes this difference.
I take omega 3 fat supplements
I’m probably taller and bigger
My family has a history of no disease, allergies, etc

#14

I did a little more research and it turns out that piroxicam is bad for tendon healing at the bone/tendon junction so there’s a tradeoff. I did find one study that said ibuprofen was bad for ligament healing but a lot of studies showed it to have no effect either way.

It sounds like the best course of action is to only take NSAIDs for a short time, a few days, unless inflammation remains a problem. I wouldn’t really recommend it as a way to help your arm recover after pitching.

The omega-3 (fish oil) is the one supplement that I’ve heard tends to actually be helpful and reducing inflammation is one of it’s purported advantages.

#15

Also, I avoid taking aleve, ibuprofen, celebrex, etc at all costs. I rarely if ever take it and I am not exaggerating. The last time I took any was probably over 3 years ago.