The RICE principle

Acute injuries are unfortunately a big part of the sporting world today. No matter how much we try to reduce injuries by making sure our joints and muscles are strong and stable enough, acute injuries have always occured and will keep occurring. If you are lucky to have a Sports Therapist present when you suffer an injury you don’t have to worry about what to do, but not every team or club are lucky to have access to a therapist’s assistance on every single training session. I think it is important that athletes and sports people understand what the RICE principleare, how it works and most importantly how you should use it. Following the simple steps underneath can help you reduce the injury time of acute injuries and therefore helping you return to your sport quicker. This is the reason why I wanted to talk about the very common RICE principle that I am sure a lot of athletes have heard about already.

So what does the letters RICE principle stand for and how can you use it?

REST, ICE, COMPRESSION AND ELEVATION

REST: I am sure most of you agree that it is self explanatory what rest means, but you may also agree that it is not always easy to rest even if you are in pain!? Does this sound familiar? I definitely know by experience that it is not always easy to go off the pitch when you get injured, if you are playing an important match or competing in an important competition. Everyone has got different pain threshold and can handle different amount of pain and discomfort. Therefore it is important to remember that if you suffer a painful injury and keep playing, all you do is probably increasing the healing and recovery time of the injury which means you might be out for several weeks/months, rather than days. I believe that players and athletes get to know their bodies’ limits better with experience and therefore are able to make the right decisions about when it is best to stop playing or competing.

ICE: Everyone has seen sports therapists and physiotherapists carrying several bags of ice packs or frozen ice when they are pitch side. This is because ice is one of the first things that you put on an acute injury, like a sprained ankle. But why do we actually do it and is there anything you have to be aware of when using ice? When an acute injury occurs, the body’s reaction is to increase the blood flow to the injured area (inflammatory response). This is why people’s ankles and knees get red and swollen after severe injuries (Picture 1). The injured area often feels warm as a result of this and the ice gets put on to try to reduce this. Ice decreases the size of the blood vessels (called vasoconstriction), which slows down the blood flow to the injured area and it also decrease pain by doing so. Ice also reduces the risk of cell death by decreasing the rate of metabolism. The important thing to bear in mind when applying ice is to never put it straight onto the skin. If you do this you can actually burn the skin and cause severe damage to the skin! To be safe, it is recommended to put 2-3 layers underneath the ice like  bandage or anything you have available to make sure you avoid any burns. Keep the ice on initially for 20 minutes.

Picture 1. Bit of swelling present here.

Picture 2. An example of ice packs (Made-in-China.com)

COMPRESSION: Compression simply means to wrap something tight around the injured area. This can be a bandage, but it can also be anything you have available like a t-shirts or scarf etc. Compression is also used to decrease the blood flow to the injury and therefore reducing recovery time, just like ice. The only thing you have to watch out for is if the compression is wrapped too tight. You can notice this is if the distal part of the limb (for example your toes or fingers) change colour and becomes blue/red. All it means is that the blood flows is being cut to the rest of the limb as well as to the injured area, so make sure you undo the compression a bit if this happens.

 ELEVATION: This simply means to elevate the injured area above your heart. So if for example you have injured an ankle, you can lie down and place your foot onto a chair or a bench. By doing this gravity helps to draw blood away from the inured area. It is advised to elevate the injured area for the first 48 hours after the injury occurred.

Hopefully those of you that weren’t too sure of how the RICE principle works know now. I tried to make it as simple as possible so that everyone is able to use and apply it when needed. It is simple and it can save you a lot of time in recovering from the injury.
 As I will be moving to Cardiff this weekend I may not have proper internet connection the first week or so, but I will keep you all posted as soon as I can:)

MoTo