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Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
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Topic Author's Original Post - Mar 4, 2013 - 09:18pm PT
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Ice cold water will do wonders for your aching muscles, tendons and joints! I have old elbows and pullups and pushups really kill them. I fill a medium size cooler with water straight from the outside faucet and them submerge my arms as far as I can into it. It's crazy, nuts cold and I can hardly stand it at first but in a few days, I can stand it more and more. After four days, it's cold and it's a fright, but I can keep my arms in there for 10 minutes.
Believe me, it's one of the best things you can do for yourself after a workout. I figure it's pretty much keeping me in the game, without it, I'b be sidelined for sure.
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gonzo chemist
climber
Fort Collins, CO
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These days, I just walk around outside in a t-shirt for 30 minutes ;-)
Doubles as training for alpine climbing!
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DanaB
climber
CT
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There was a recent (2012) article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine about ice water immersion as a recovery technique. The authors did a meta-analyis of the published literature and they concluded that ice water immersion decreased delayed onset muscle soreness and improved recovery of muscle power.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Too bad there weren't any beers in the chest...
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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I did a tough mudder event last year, Arctic Enema is one of the challenges where you jump into a pool filled with ice and go under a barrier where you have to go totally under water / ice and come up on the other side and push up through a LOT of ice to get out. Cold water never bothered me, but I was surprised how good it felt after a few miles of uphill jogging. My whole body instantly felt better.
Also on the way back from climing in Hetch Hetchy I stopped and went in the lower part of Wapama Falls. It was like getting a whole body massage and iced at the same time. Awesome.
One more, after a day of climbing in the valley I'll often soak my feet and hands in Fern spring, ahhh so good!
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S.Leeper
Social climber
somewhere that doesnt have anything over 90'
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used alot of ice before and after the marathons I've run.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
the crowd MUST BE MOCKED...Mocked I tell you.
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good thread
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
bouldering
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Too bad there weren't any beers in the chest... If it's any consolation, that's pure vodka he's soaking in.
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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I h8te cold water--but, in wrestling they made the injured take the dip into cold whirlpool "baths"...
...luckily, I never had to sit in the stainless vat of swirling chill
Hope your ailments become well and manageable sir Mark!!!!1111
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Captain...or Skully
climber
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I soaked my bum foot(New Dawn, another story) in cold water a bunch.
It hurt GOOD. Really helped.
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Capt.
climber
some eastside hovel
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I was watchin' hockey last night and they were saying that the Coyotes goalie(Smith)goes to the locker room every intermission and ditches all his gear,soaks in the cold tub,puts all the gear back on and goes back out for the next period.Total ritual and he swears by it.I was actually most amazed that he can do that time wise.That's a LOT of gear.
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hossjulia
Trad climber
Where the Hoback and the mighty Snake River meet
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Is this a guy thing?
Cold water makes me hurt so bad I can't stand it! I've tried the cold therapy, ended up making my muscles cramp up and hurt like hell! Only time it helps is when my knee is actually swollen, otherwise, makes my joints feel like glass.
What up?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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cold is a great specific anti-inflamation agent, and ice baths of all sorts are used by professional athletes to manage inflammation due to their activities.
I've used it for my back when the pain is very specific, better than massive doses of vitamin I in my opinion and definitely an important treatment to use on aging bodies...
But I have to wonder if following the path of professional athletes is such a good thing... for one, they are usually involved in their sport for a relatively short period of their lives, could be a few years, could be 10 years maybe the lucky ones would go 20 years. And the various remedies they come up with to extend and maximize those careers are rather short term, and often accelerate the deleterious effects of their participation in those sports.
The body responds to physical insult by many processes, inflammation is one of them. Modern training techniques challenging the body and then letting it rest. The desired response is to build skeletal-muscular strength. However, this is only one possible response, and what the body does depends on many factors, but age is certainly one of them.
By treating the symptoms of injury one might prevent additional injury (we know that training on inflamed joints and muscles is bad) but we are treating symptoms.
This begs the question, how does one train for longevity in a physical activity. We certainly cannot train like we were young. I've pondered this for a long time and haven't come up with much, really, but a few realizations are apt.
One is that strength building is pretty much complete, and additional strength is not likely to be easily accomplished given the hormonal state of aging bodies.
Another is that our knowledge of the movements is much much better than it was when we were starting, and we have much more experience applying those movements to our objectives.
The third is that training to maintain our capabilities involves both challenging our strengths but importantly also our weaknesses (think balanced training, where stabilizing muscles are toned, push and pull trained, etc.) and that we pay attention to training that helps prevent injury (that includes maintaining range of motion with strength).
Along with all this, maintaining good form when training is paramount... once form is lost the desired effect of the exercise is lost also.
As with all things about aging, leaving egotistical notions behind is an important prerequisite to effective training.
I don't think that training an aged body to continue athletic performance is a well understood aspect of medicine or sport... but certainly we can collectively fill in the details.
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ddriver
Trad climber
SLC, UT
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Ed, I'm no expert at all, but my wife is a physical therapist and very active and fit as she turns 50. She sees quite a bit of literature and anecdote that shows that you can gain muscle mass through resistance training into your 80's if not beyond. Surely injury and motivation are limiting factors.
Icing as therapy against inflammation has a long history, and is effective for all kinds of injury treatment, including range of motion. Its also effective when used in conjunction with heat treatments, as the combination appears to have a flushing effect. Again, I'm just blowing out my ass here.
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ladyscarlett
Trad climber
SF Bay Area, California
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that's way too painful for me to do that to myself...i just can't get into that level of self abuse, even if you call it 'recovery'...heheheheh!!
a long while back, a trainer had me do an ice bath treatment. Almost passed out into the water. After that it was heat treatment for me...which suits me just fine! I'll take it hot any day! ;)
does this mean that ice climbing could be considered as an aggressive form of physical therapy? ;)
cheers
ls
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Ed, that's just depressing to read, I do hope you're wrong. I didn't really start climbing until my late 20's, and the delayed recovery was already obvious from other activities. Now that I'm in my 40's, suffering new indignities every year, it's a good thing statistical or genetic freaks like Fred Beckey exist to maintain my motivation.
TE
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Frozenwaterfalls
Ice climber
California
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Funny you should mention ice climbing as therapy, Lady Scarlet! I am at week 5 of recovering from a dislocated ankle. Dislocated in the most irritating of ways - hopping off the bouldering wall at the gym and having my ankle slide between two mats. I reduced it myself, had two great friends help me get back from the hospital and get my car home for me and have been in recovery mode since. I have been going to PT and got a second opinion (orthopedists rock, podiatrists, not so much) and have been told to ice 2-3 times a day. Inflammation is down from the football-sized foot I had immediately after, but I still get a lot of swelling. Anyway, last week I finally got the okay to not wear the boot anymore. So, figuring this was some good news, I asked if I could go ice climbing this weekend. Figured it would be a great combo of dorsiflexion work, proprioception work, and heck, a full day of icing! Plus I could drag out the plastic boots and that would be more secure than walking around in sneakers over the highly potholed sidewalks of Berkeley. The look of horror on my PT's face was pretty priceless. Sigh...another weekend of recovery at home. But icing does really seem to help! I ice religiously in the morning and then off and on all evening when I am home. I can visibly see the swelling drop and the pain does too. Good stuff. Though I wish I could swing tools too!
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Hmmm, this makes me wonder about soaking my right foot, which is afflicted with Morton's Neuroma, and has been acting up a little more lately. I think I'll try it for a couple weeks and bump this thread when I have some anecdotal evidence, I'm not the only climber with that issue.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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I just think the 100+ old guy Nose thing is on and the only real question left is will Mark and Max pass Jim and George on the route.
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Keith Leaman
Trad climber
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Good advice, Mark. In Minnesota, we did some outdoor chores at the same time...like de-icing the swimmin' hole. (true, but not me in the photo)
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Major shrinkage potential in the last photo
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nutjob
Sport climber
Almost to Hollywood, Baby!
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Mental outlook has a big impact on tolerance for cold water. I used to be a total wuss about jumping in cold rivers/lakes until some of le_bruce's enthusiasm for it rubbed off on me.
Now whenever I'm driving through the mountains with the kids and the opportunity arises, we stop for a quick dunk and fun. I'm the one who has to encourage them to jump in instead of the other way around. Thanks le_bruce for helping me see the light!
Maybe cold water therapy is like Type 2 fun, better in hindsight.
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Michelle
Social climber
Toshi's Station, picking up power converters.
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This makes sense. It also explains why I feel better after jumping into the creek at Chipmunk Flat after a long day.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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For a second I thought Keith's pic was of Vlad Putin.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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And I thought it was Donini in training.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Donini doesn't have love handles. You gotta use a bridle on him.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Au contraire....i won't go close to water that isn't warm enough to breed hurricanes.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I'm not saying you can't build muscle mass as you get older, I'm saying that if you've been climbing throughout your life you probably aren't going to generate a significant amount more muscle mass.
At some point in your early 30s you start to have a significant reduction of the hormones that promote muscle growth and the body starts to reduce muscle mass but maintain overall body mass...
I found a big difference from 50 to 59 (next year 60) in that the intensity of training I can undertake, a lot less over that period; which has also been punctuated by injuries from a variety of activities including climbing.
Recovery from injury and building strength are competing processes, and injury prevents strength building in the injured part. As recovery times go up, training intensity is reduced, and you enter into a "vicious cycle."
As I increased my recovery times from both injuries and training the recurrence of injuries has gone down without affecting climbing too much. In some sense slow increases in training over a longer period of time are more successful than bouts of intense training.
It also occurred to me that the sort of training I did in high school, and as a young adult were probably inappropriate for my current body.
Finally, intensely training a particular skill set, off width climbing, for an intensive period led to a series of injuries that have prevented me from getting back to those sorts of difficult climbs not to mention any sort of difficult training. I'm still climbing the OW, just taking my time getting back to the lists of climbs...
I ice, it's a very good way to control inflammation. And I expect injuries from climbing, too. I've been trying to be as focussed on recovery as on climbing when it happens.
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pc
climber
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So taking this down one possible path...
If one were looking for performance enhancement in a certain...er...activity... Could one expect improvement in "performance" by icing the participating bodypart?
but then again maybe the anti-inflammatory properties deflate the purpose...
Just wondering out loud for a "friend"...
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The Lisa
Trad climber
Da Bronx, NY
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Very informative thread! Various studies come out all the time saying ice is great or ice does nothing or ice is harmful. For me I go with whatever feels right to me. Sometimes it is ice, sometimes it is heat.
I have found ice to be useful in alleviating pain from sprains and strains, and my trusted chiropractor/ART guy tells me the same.
However, for muscle recovery after running ultras I find compression works better than ice. A lot of my marathon friends swear by the ice bath though.
Growing up in Ireland and swimming in the Atlantic in April has made me tolerate cold water well, and I do enjoy Polar Bear swims. The warm waters in Miami felt really strange the one time I went there lol.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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The water off of Miami is way too cold until July.
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RyanD
climber
Squamish
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My understanding has always been that icing an acute injury (ie sprained ankle) by just putting ice in the affected area is only slightly effective in comparison to immersing the entire body in cold water.
Dirtbag hydrotherapy is as follows: hot shower 15 min, last 3 or 4 min as hot as you can handle. Then flip to very cold for at least 45 seconds, 60+ is ideal. As tempting as it is to go back to heat- do not! Get out, dry off & lay down still or nap for 15 minutes. When u get up u will be ready to do anything- or nothing.......
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Bump, splash!!
It is a hot July day and I am walking down the old CCC trail hacked out of the chaparral on Snyder Ridge above Devil Gulch leading to Marble Point on the So. Fk. of the Merced, maybe two miles tops.
There is no water source and I am out--the spring at the top of the hill I stupidly, naively, relied on is bone dry. I'm dehydrating and I keep moving to finish this enduro run. There is a whole river of cold water down there.
I get to the bottom, find a shallows and strip naked and lie in the cold water.
Cramping, severe at times, follows as I am drying off. It gets dark,The moon is full, and I cannot possibly steep that night, even though I drink large amounts of water to deal with the muscle cramps, mainly in my back.
So, I should have cooled down and then what, Doc? Gradual immersion, no immersion? Just drink water???
As a young kid, would I have noticed the same discomfort? Or are we more susceptible to cramps the more our bodies age?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/heart-attack-and-water/5362673
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