April 6, 2020 • 30 mins
For decades you have been told by doctors and coaches to ice an injury to help it heal. Cold therapy is not only recommended for trauma to soft tissue, but also post-exercise to supposedly help you recover faster for your next workout. Is that really what the science says? Hear the answer as Tom discusses the controversial topic of cold therapy with sports journalist Lindsay Berra, and learn how the doctor who coined the acronym R.I.C.E. (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) said... he was wrong!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland, and this is Fitness Disrupted. The
cold hard truth about icing your injuries. That is the
title of an article I was reading recently and a
(00:23):
lot of people had reached out to me about doing
a show on icing and cryotherapy. So here it is.
This article phenomenal, the writer phenomenal. So she's gonna be
my guest. Lindsay Barra is coming up, and we're gonna
talk all about icing and as it applies to two things,
both injuries, icing after injury, because that's what we did, right.
(00:43):
We're gonna talk about that rice rest, ice compression elevation
that you're gonna be pretty amazed at what the doctor says,
who actually came up with that. Okay, so we're gonna
talk about that end ice and cold therapy as it
applies to recovery from exercise, because the recovery market never
been bigger. Nine million ways to supposedly recover after your exercise,
(01:05):
your workouts, and they all claim the same benefits. But
what's the science behind it. We're gonna talk about that.
So let me give you her bio. She is amazing, Uh,
Lindsay Barra is a freelance sports journalist based in Montclair,
New Jersey. She contributes regularly to the sports business journal
Baseball America, ESPN, W Fast Company, Men's Health, New Jersey Monthly,
(01:27):
Bodybuilding dot Com, and other outlets at MLB dot com.
From January two thirteen through January two thousand eighteen, she
established herself as an authority on baseball fitness and injuries
and appeared frequently on the MLB Network to discuss her stories.
From two thousand twelve, she was a senior writer for
(01:47):
ESPN Magazine, covering primarily ice hockey, tennis, baseball, and the Olympics.
Lindsay received her undergraduate degree in journalism from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she played yes
varse the softball and Men's Club ice hockey. She is
the oldest grandchild of Yogi and Carmen Barras soever her
last name sounded familiar, that's why she's the granddaughter of
(02:09):
the late Yogi Bearra, and she's a board member at
the Yogi Barra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls,
New Jersey. She's amazing. I've read many of her articles
and she just she walks the walks, she's an athlete,
she is super smart, and those are the only guests
I bring on this show. So when we come back
from the break, we're gonna talk all about ice. And
(02:29):
I think you're going to be pretty amazed at what
the current science tells us. So when we come back,
Lindsay Bera and we are back, could not be more excited, because,
(02:49):
as I say all the time, I only bring you
the best guests. And I've been speaking with Lindsay and
she's amazing, And this is someone you want to talk
to you. She walks, the walks, she talks to talk.
She's an athlete. She played, as I said in her bio,
she played hockey, which I love. I'm a hockey guy myself.
But watching her clips, she knows sports. She knows injuries.
She knows what we're talking about. And we're gonna talking
(03:11):
about icing, We're gonna talk about cold therapy, and we're
gonna talk about it in two ways, right, Wendy. We're
gonna talk about it when it comes to injury and recovery. Yes,
all right, And this is a this is a tough topic, Lindsay, right,
because people have been icing forever, right, and it's tough
to change. Absolutely. I was at ESPN magazine for so
long and then at MLB and you walk into locker
(03:32):
rooms and all you see is guys with giant, glacial
size ice packs seran wrapped two different parts of their body.
I'm thinking about Aaron Judge with the giant um ice
pack on his shoulder, Lebron James with with ice packs
on both knees and both feet in buckets of ice
while he's doing his interviews. Or you've got Patrick Mahomes
(03:54):
was just in a Direct TV commercials sitting in an
ice bucket. MICHAELA. Schiffrin was in a Visa commercials sitting
in an ice bath. I mean it. They all still
think that this is great, and there is something to
be said if mentally you think it makes you feel better,
But the science is directly, you know, contradicting that feeling,
(04:14):
you know. And I love that, and we'll talk about that,
because that's the thing. The messages always get mixed, right,
and so does it make you feel better? Of course, right,
But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
And as you say in your article, by the way,
and I love just the title cold Heart Truth about
Ice and Your Injuries. That's what we're calling this podcast.
You know, just because it feels good doesn't mean it's right.
And the science now, the most recent science, and by
(04:35):
the way, we'll talk about the guy who actually came
up with the rice acronym says he was wrong. Uh well,
and also we're also talking about, like when we say
the most recent science, there's a study as far back
as six that said when you when you apply ice
for a prolonged period of time, the primeability of lymphatic
vessels increases, which causes a backflow of fluid into the
(04:56):
interstitial space and actually increases local swelling at the area
of where you're putting ice, as opposed to decreasing it,
which is what you're trying to do. Right, So this
is okay, And so that's I mean, how many thirty
nine is a thirty four years ago, right, So it's
not necessarily that we're talking about new science. There actually
has not been a single peer reviewed, concrete, definitive study
(05:21):
that says that ice is good for you for anything
other than reduction of pain, right, And like if your
kid runs down the steps and smashes his base into
a doorknob, and he's screaming bloody murder, and you're gonna
put an ice pack on it because it's gonna make
him stop crying. Great, do it wonderful. He's not going
to keep it on there long enough to do any
damage anyway. He's gonna sit there for two minutes and
then go back to his legos. Right, So in that case,
(05:44):
you use the ice, you know, if you're needing to
stop an immediate pain response, right, But that's not what
we're talking about here. When we ice things after difficult
workouts or after surgeries and whatnot, you're generally not in
this excruciating amount of pain that needs to be managed.
You're doing this for a different reason because you think
it's going to decrease inflammation and accelerate your healing process.
(06:08):
But the actual science says that it will actually, over
the course of time, increase is swelling and lengthen the
healing process. So you need to have that inflammation. Every
study that we have now that actually talks about inflammation.
So when Dr Marken, and we'll get back to him,
invented the rice protocol in the seventies, inflammation wasn't actually
(06:30):
even in the research at that point, they didn't know
what it was, right. So now we know that inflammation
brings all the side of kinds and the I g
F one and the things that we need to repair
our muscle tissue. And if you halt that inflammatory response,
you delay that repair and clean up crew from getting
into the injured area. And then once the tissue rewarms,
(06:53):
the inflammatory response is going to resume anyway, So you're
just delaying your body's ability to fix what ails it right.
And your body, by the way, the most intelligently engineered
thing we've ever seen. Just let it do its job.
Like why are we all trying to you know, combat evolution.
You know, we figured it out and and we're and
we're trying to stop that. And I talked about that
(07:14):
all the time, lindsay that the body, as you just said,
and I used those very words, you know, really smart machine,
let it do its thing oftentimes. And this is a
great example we we don't and the body and I
love in your article you even talked about like cavemen
didn't come home after like rolling their ankle and pack
it in ice and stop moving. No, they chased after
their dinner if they wanted to eat yeah, and and
(07:36):
putting pressure that that's another study that I have in there.
I don't know the year, but like, there's a study
that when you load damage tissue Journal of American Academy
of Orthopedic Surgeons, I've got your article loading damage tissue
accelerates the healing of bone and muscle tissue, while prolonged
periods of inactivity sitting on your butt on the couch
promote aberrant tissue repair. So you don't want aborant tissue repair.
(08:00):
You want to be able to use your tissue in
the way it was intended, right exactly? Was so rest
and ice not so much? And back to you were
talking about Dr Merkin Harvard, Uh, the Rice protocol. What
I love this too because people just love this. Where
did it originally come from? So what was the incident
that you talked about? So the incident that I talked
(08:20):
about in the story was in nineteen sixty two when
a young kid named Everett Knowls jumped on a freight
train in Somerville, Massachusetts on his walk home from school
because he thought the freight train would you get him
home a little bit more quickly, And he wasn't paying
attention and he smashes his shoulder into a stone bridge structure,
which this is horrific, and it severed his arm. Basically,
(08:41):
the boy is rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital and there's
a surgeon there, Dr Ronald Malt, another Harvard guy like Merkin,
he makes this historic call while he's deciding how to
reattach Noel's severed arm. He takes the the the arm
and puts it on ice. Right, So this works. This
is the first time in history that reattachment surgery like
(09:03):
this is successful, and doctors begin using the same protocol
across the board to treat all damaged tissue, especially in
the sports world. Now, I do think it is worth
noting that whenever you like, like if someone chops off
their fingers with lawn mower and whatnot and you put
it in a cooler or they're saving it to be reattached,
they wrap that thing in like eighty seven layers of
(09:24):
gauze and plastic to prevent the ice from touching it
because they know it will damage the tissue. Right, So
doctors start doing this to decrease swelling and pain from
sports injuries. Right. So Everett Knowles is in sixty two.
Then there's this famous photo of Sandy Kofax that runs
in Sports Illustrated, I believe in sixty five with his
(09:44):
legendary left arm and a vat of ice. And it
kind of goes on from there in when Dr Merkin
writes his sports Medicine book, which kind of becomes the Bible.
He basically he wasn't doing anything based on extended research.
He was are phrasing what doctors were doing at the time, right,
They were resting, they were icing, they were compressing, wrapping
(10:05):
things tightly. And he adds the E on the end
of it to make rice because Rick is just not
that catchy, right, And then we end up with the
phrase rice is nice, right, And we're doing this for
years and years and years now. Dr Merkin who is
eighty five years old now he lives down in Florida
and he's like a regular blogger and podcaster and whatnot.
(10:27):
God bless him. And he's now telling anybody who will
listen that he was wrong about rest and ice, that
it actually decelerates your healing process as opposed to accelerates
your healing process. Yeah, and another study you talk about
in the article two thousand ten Federation of American Society's
for Experimental Biology Journal again, but back what you said
at the start. When tissues damaged, you know it's necessary
(10:49):
to let the inflammatory response happen, and constricting the blood
vessels is not the way to do it right. No,
and and it also the other the other, the big
studies I like these two dozen, fIF teen, fourteen and
fifteen ones that show that code word what our immersion
after training substantially reduces your long term gains and muscle
mass and strength. So basically you're negating the adaptation that
(11:12):
you're trying to get from a workout. Because at the
end of the day, this is something that I don't
really think that a lot of people understand. Soreness and
injurery injury in a muscle are only different in degree,
not kind. Right. Your soreness is because you have all
these micro tears in your muscle from your workout, and
then your body repairs them and the muscle comes back stronger.
(11:32):
And injury is when the tear is bigger. Right, So
it's a small tear or a big tear, it's the
same stuff, just at at an accelerated rate. So athletes
are like, oh, but I'm not injured. I'm doing this
so I can train harder tomorrow. And they get in
the ice bath or whatever it is that they're doing,
and they're negating all of the good things that they've
(11:52):
done for themselves in their workout, and it's just crazy.
See that's so interesting, and most people, as you said,
don't even get to that point. Right. So we're talking
about recovery and what that study and it's the two
fourteen study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
And what Lindsay saying is it's it's it's um diminishing
the results of your workout, the effects of your workout.
(12:14):
So that's pretty amazing, I mean, substantially reduces long term gains, right,
And that's crazy. The one of the things I do
want to make a point of this is not to
say that things like whim Hoff, like where he does
like the psycho cold water immersion for a couple of
minutes two and then uses the breathing to accelerate. That's
a little bit of a different channel mechanism. That's a
(12:35):
different thing. We're not like, this is not whim Hoff,
And most people who are sitting in an ice bath
for twenty minutes, you're not whim Hoff either, so like
this is not that's not what we're talking about. So
then then the other the big question that we get
to here is well, all right, if I'm not going
to ice my entries, what am I supposed to do? Right? So,
your body brings all of this stuff, The repair and
(12:56):
clean up crew comes in to um take care of
the damage that you've done to your tissue. And so
you have inflammation which brings that process there, and then
you have swelling. And there are really two different things.
Inflammation is the necessary process by which your body heals.
Swelling is what happens when you let that inflammation sit
(13:18):
around and congest the area and suffocate healthy cells, and
you can actually cause more damage. So to decrease swelling
the byproduct of inflammation, you how do you do that? Right? So,
all of these particles that go in there to repair tissue,
they're too large to be evacuated through blood vessels and stuff.
(13:39):
They have to be evacuated through your lymphatic system. Your
lymphatic system is a passive system, and stuff is only
pumped through the lymphatic vessels via the contraction of the
muscles around the vessels. So what does that mean you
have to move. Okay, So you now look, we all
understand that you're not going to be like squatting on
(14:00):
a tour in a c L or you know, running
stuff like that. But you need to find a safe
way to load the damage tissue so you can flex
the muscles and and and pump out that inflammation. Right now,
no matter how bad your springing ankle is, you're probably
going to be able to like lay on your back,
stick your foot in their and do an alphabet or
(14:22):
some ankle circles or or or foot pumps or something
like that, right um. And if you're so injured that
you can't do that, there's so many devices on the
market now, like the mark Pro, the Complex, the power Dot,
the Firefly, all these little stem devices that you know,
there you go, there's your commercial. You can put these.
You can put these little stim units on there and
(14:44):
they will contract the muscles for you to pump out
that inflammation. One other thing I want to say is
that these things are not attends unit. Attends unit just
desensitizes the area DEADNS pain. This is a different kind
of frequency that creates a non fatiguing contraction and that
pumps the muscles a little different than tents and and
most of those websites have very good comparison information on
(15:06):
it if you were to check it out. But so
if you're if you're so hurt that you can't find
a way to walk on it, or just if you
have a sprained ankle, just stand on it, like load it.
You don't have to jump on it. If you can't
find a way to do that. There's all these devices
out there that will do it for you. And that's
a huge change, right when you know, I'm fifty one,
and I know back in the day when you got injured,
broke something or whatever, they told, you know, don't do anything.
(15:30):
And obviously they've changed their tune with that. You know,
you get your hip done now and they have you
on a bike the next day. They want you moving
as soon as possible, but not so with the ice, right,
so they kind of went off the rest part, but
not the ice part. Yeah, they're they're even things like
Achilles tendon repairs and a c LS. Like, you're not
immobilized the way you used to be. They do watch
you moving, but the ice and I think I think
(15:51):
some of it is for pain, but most pain can
be alleviated if you a decongest the area or be
just put yourself into a different position, you know, like
you can. There's ways to alleviate pain. And we say,
like back then they didn't have the stim units and whatnot.
But like, what did our parents always used to say
to us, walk it off right? It was it was
(16:11):
tough love. But there's a lot of logic in that, yes,
walk it off right. I think we had the same dad, right,
we all had the same dad in nine. But that
also went for concussions and everything else. Lindsay, well, and again,
you have to be smart, and you can't. I told
you I played hockey with boys my whole life. I've
had seven concussions. I've been trying. I've been trying to
(16:33):
walk that last one off for three years and I'm not.
That's a whole another story. If I forget your name
by the end of this show, that's that's my excuse, right,
too many times having the bell rung. But that's what
I love. And again, I just love your whole philosophy.
And that's what this show is about. It's it's the science,
it's the and I now call it my acronym Lindsay,
is the RWs real world stuff I call it. You
(16:54):
can put the other word there, but it's as you
started the show by saying, it's like, Okay, if your kid,
you know, hangs his knee, you can put ice on
it to make him feel better in the moment, but
just know the science is you actually want that to happen.
So that's you know, that's the difference. You can feel good,
but over time, you want the body to do its
natural thing. And there's so many professional athletes who are
(17:17):
sort of they're starting to get it. Um. You see
a lot of pitchers in the big leagues now who
are not icing, like Corey Kluber, for example, he's in
the story, and that's health. He hasn't ice his arm
since he made the big leagues. And Corey Kluber's pitch
two innings for like the last eight years or something.
There you go, don't call me on the stats. But yeah,
So he gets he gets off the mound and he'll
go he does banned work to kind of flush out
(17:39):
the area, and then he'll spend twenty or thirty minutes
with a mark pro on his arm, which is one
of those stim units that used to be. Chip Shaefer
is the performance guy for the Bulls, and he talks
about how in Michael Jordan's day he used to have
twenty four ice packs in the room. Bove guys put
an ice pack on each knee, and he doesn't do
that anymore. He'd rather have you on the bike for
a little while, or or using a stem thing, or
(18:01):
just doing some sort of very low level active recovery
to pump out the information. Kelly Starrett I think is
a genius pt and he talks about even if you've
already worked out in the morning, you should or at
some point in the day, you should still be getting
that ten to twelve thousand steps a day because it
just contracts the muscles and flushes things out and keeps
(18:23):
you from becoming sore. If you look at our lifestyles
the way we live now, we all spend maybe an
hour working out, and then the rest of the day
we're basically on our butts. Back in the day, even
if you worked out, jobs were you know you, people
walked and biked more. The jobs are more manual people
who are doing stuff moving around all day. That's not
the way we live our lives anymore, especially now we're
(18:43):
all in the houses all day. You have to get
up and move and and use your muscles as God intended.
I love that. And you know, my real world kind
of experience was that first time I ever did the
Hawaii iron Man. You know, crazy, so hard, and the
next day I'm celebrating. I'm at a you know, restaurant
with the bloody Mary on all e drive, you know,
and what do I see, lindsay, like dozens and dozens
(19:07):
of athletes doing what you're talking about, running, you know,
the easy run the day after the race. You know,
they're not ten hours finished or whatever it was. But
we're meant to move right, we're men, and it's the
simple stuff. But you can't you can't sell that, right,
So there's no product. You can't sell the cryotherapy uh
as as walking, but you know that's what the science
and just the natural bodies mechanisms are meant to do.
(19:29):
And the other thing like people say like, oh I
can't go for another walker, I can't ride the bike.
I already worked out. I'm tired. Jesse Thomas, right elite
tray athlete, like he's doing half iron Man races that
take five hours and then when he's done, he goes
out on like a leisurely ride for another hour. Okay,
the guy's doing seven hours of activity. You can do
a little something else after your thirty minute hit class, right,
(19:51):
like not that I'm calling everyone whimps, but like um,
but and then the other thing you make a good
point to there's no, there's not a lot of you know,
walking is not a product. It's a technology that we
all have without having to buy anything. Right. I think
one of the big problems that we have with this
whole icing message is that so many doctors, orthopedic surgeons
(20:14):
are invested in companies that create icing products like the
cryle cuff and the hyper ice and all of these things,
and they send people who have had surgery home with
the prescription for this thing like put your leg in
the in the cryo cop do this, do that. And
they've been doing this for decades and decades and decades,
And I think part of the fear is that if
(20:36):
the doctors come out now and say icing is wrong,
we live in a very ligitious society. Everyone they've ever
done surgery on who they told to go home and
ice who didn't have the exact outcome, They wanted from
surgery could then turn around and sue them for telling
them to use ice. They know it's wrong, they know
it makes no sense, but it's become so entrenched over
(20:57):
these years that it's like kind of impossible to dig
out of that whole. I love that, so that's why
it continues. Yes, I'm a fitness expert in the lawsuits
now all the time. It's so sad how many of
these type of cases now where you know, with more
people exercising and more people getting hurt, and it's just
super sad. But that's why, you know, people say, well,
if my doctor keeps telling me to do it, that's
you know, one of the reasons. And that's what I
(21:18):
love about this show, Lindsay is. And I've left so
much money on the table over the years. My wife
wants to kill me because people reach out to me
all the time about products, you know, rep my product,
and I go absolutely not because I don't believe. You know,
science says it doesn't work, and I don't care how
much you know you're gonna pay me, I won't do it.
It's about the science and what we're selling here is
the information right, and that's why I love you know this,
(21:40):
my gosh, like have you always so you're playing hockey
at a young age, That's that's what sports were you playing.
I played soccer, I played ice hockey, and I played softball.
Growing up, I played a little basketball as well. I've
always been like a hiker and a cyclist and a runner.
But I played at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
on the tar heel. I played varsity soft ball, and
(22:00):
then I played men's club hockey as well, and then
post college we were talking before, I'm I'm I've been
doing CrossFit for about twelve years. I did a lot
of triathlons for a long time. I am really into hiking.
I've hiked in the Alps and the Dolomites and the
Andies and and my brother and I had to kill
manjar O. We've we've hyped all over the world. I'm
basically just super hyperactive, and it's getting worse as I
(22:21):
get older. So I don't know what's I don't know
what's in store for me in the next ten years.
But I as you say, like, I've never so I
had a labor repair surgery, I've I've torn calf muscles,
I've had a lot of things wrong with me, and
and as long as I can remember, in college, I
used to fight with our trainers. I would go to
my PT and do my rehab and they'd want to
(22:43):
send me put put ice on me for ten minutes
before I went back out into the world. Now are
in college. Our training room was down to the football
stadium and I had to walk about fifteen minutes back
to my dorm, and a lot of it was uphill,
and I'm like, if you put that ice on me,
I'm not gonna be able to move and I'm gonna
be gimping up this hill and it's going to be terrible.
So I don't want the ice. I want to walk
(23:04):
up the hill. And inevitably, when I got finished walking
up the hill, I always felt a little better. So
I think I sort of intuitively didn't like it. But
also I don't know these people, like they say it
makes them feel better sitting in a cold tub, is
why do you want to do that? It's horrible. Yeah,
I'm so with you on that. I did it once.
I felled, you know, after a training for an ironmy
and I felled a you know, big plastic garbage can
(23:25):
with ice and water. I got in it and then
I hurt myself getting out. It was ver I never
or like if you must, if you must, do the cold,
like like do the freezing cold for like thirty seconds
and getting the hot shower at least that simulates your
lymphatics and gets go. It's all about getting that lymphatic
response so the hot cold will will pump it. Contrast
(23:46):
therapy I love. Sitting in the cold tub does nothing
and it just it's not Also, you can't get it
cold enough anyway to make it work. Like and if
you have a problem like deep in your hip join
or something, and you're putting an ice pack on the outside,
like you really think that cold is going to get
all the way in there to where it needs to
be if it was cold, and I know you're just
giving yourself frostbite on the outside of your hip, right,
(24:09):
It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, No, I'm still
with you and so helpful for people like That's exactly
what this show is forced to give. You know, the science,
and you know you've walked to walk with all the
professional athletes too, and you know they're gonna keep doing it.
And for the reasons we outlined, and it doesn't mean
it's right just because doctors are doing it, just because
professional athletes are doing it and they do it for
(24:29):
a different reason to you know, which isn't always the
right reason, right. Um, how do people follow you so
Twitter at Lindsay Barra on Twitter? You can same same
thing on LinkedIn. I am one of those archaic people
who still doesn't have an Instagram. I apologize. Oh I
wish I didn't. You know, I'm too old for it.
But it's the new world, and you have so many
other articles. I'll just say, like the great one on
(24:50):
um oh Dr Fauci that that was just in men's health. Yeah,
he's still seventy nine years old, night working nineteen hour
days on the front lines against still funding time to run.
It's important for physical health and for our sanity. So
if you think you're too old or you think you
don't have enough time both around. When it comes to
so read all of Lindsay stuff, she's amazing. Definitely gonna
(25:11):
have you back because I want to talk more about
just sports and stuff like that. Thank you so much.
I mean this has been so helpful for people like awesome.
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, all right,
so Lindsay Barra again. Check her at Lindsay Barra dot com.
It's Lindsay s A Y Barra b E r r
A dot com. Check her out. Amazing, Thanks so much
and look forward to having me back. Great, thank you.
All right, we'll be right back after this short break
(25:44):
and we are back. How great is Lindsay Barrett? How smart?
Oh wow? What just helpful segment. Now. I know some
of you are probably still saying, oh, you're gonna ice it? Well,
you know, this is the science. This is the science
and brought to you from someone you know. And Lindsey
(26:06):
and I were talking before the show, like she's not
a doctor, but you know what, some of the smartest
people I know are the ones who research, study, live it.
You know, she's been around it obviously, being the grandchild
of Yogui Barrow, around professional athletes, super smart athlete herself,
and I love it the latest science. So there you
have it. When it comes to cold it's gonna make
(26:26):
you feel better. But science says, and there are other studies,
by the way that that go against this. I've talked
about contributed some articles that you know, there's some studies
that show this, you know, the benefits potentially, But we
just went through some pretty strong arguments that the body
(26:46):
needs to heal itself naturally, and that is my overarching
philosophy to health and wellness. Keep it simple, excessive moderation, right,
it's the simple stuff that works. The body is a
really smart machine. I love that she said that. You know,
I tend to have people on that I'm gonna say
agree with, but I have the same philosophy because it's
(27:07):
about simplicity. We're not selling products. And it's another thing too,
not here hawking you know some products. I'm giving you
the information. Lindsay's here giving you the information so you
can make the most informed choices about your health. And
we can make it sound really complicated, and we can,
you know, talk about stuff that's against the norm, but
(27:31):
this is against the norm for those reasons. And I
love that she talked about where it came from. And
I often say, you know, look at my old football
team and coaches. They're doing stuff that long ago we
weren't probably shouldn't do it, but they do it because
that's how everyone else did it before them, and their
coaches did it, and so it's really hard to change.
(27:52):
It's really hard to change. And if it feels good,
you know. Quite often I'll say, if something feels good,
then fine, if you know, But if it's preventing your recovery.
And the study she talked about, now the studies are
saying it it may decrease the effectiveness of your workouts,
(28:14):
that's interesting. So the bottom line is I'm gonna be sore.
And I looked that she said too. I never liked
ice paths personally, as I said, I got in one,
made one and hurt myself getting out, like you know, fell.
So that's the science, and that's what this show is about,
debunking the myths and just looking at the current wisdom
and saying, is that the right thing? And the recovery
(28:37):
market has never been bigger, as I started the show
by saying, but that doesn't mean it's right. So I
would rather you do things that feel good that might
not prevent the healing process and won't decrease the results
of your workout. But that's me all right. So I
hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you so much to
Lindsay Barra. What an amazing woman. I will definitely have
(29:00):
her back to talk about some other things. She is uh,
super smart in many different areas and an athlete herself,
as she talked about. So thank you Lindsey bart checker
out Lindsay Barra dot com. If you haven't rated this show,
please do so, and if you have rated it, thank you.
And I love the comments. I've been doing whole shows
based on questions and comments, so please if you can
(29:21):
leave them, go right ahead do that as well. You
can contact me through Fitness disrupted dot com. Go there,
shoot me an email and Tom h Fit is my Twitter.
Tom h Fit is Instagram. And if you share social
media about the show, which I appreciate highly, hashtag fitness disrupted.
All right, I am Tom Olwen. Thanks one final time
(29:42):
to Lindsay Barra for taking the time. Talked all about
the cold heart truth about icing your injuries. I want
you to look your best, feel your best, and live
your best life as long as possible, with those years
to be quality years. And there are three things we
can control, how much we move, what we put in
our mouths, and our attitudes, and that is awesome. I'm
(30:05):
Tom Holland, exercise physiologist. This is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in yourself.
Fitness Disrupted is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
(30:26):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland, and this is Fitness Disrupted. The
cold hard truth about icing your injuries. That is the
title of an article I was reading recently and a
(00:23):
lot of people had reached out to me about doing
a show on icing and cryotherapy. So here it is.
This article phenomenal, the writer phenomenal. So she's gonna be
my guest. Lindsay Barra is coming up, and we're gonna
talk all about icing and as it applies to two things,
both injuries, icing after injury, because that's what we did, right.
(00:43):
We're gonna talk about that rice rest, ice compression elevation
that you're gonna be pretty amazed at what the doctor says,
who actually came up with that. Okay, so we're gonna
talk about that end ice and cold therapy as it
applies to recovery from exercise, because the recovery market never
been bigger. Nine million ways to supposedly recover after your exercise,
(01:05):
your workouts, and they all claim the same benefits. But
what's the science behind it. We're gonna talk about that.
So let me give you her bio. She is amazing, Uh,
Lindsay Barra is a freelance sports journalist based in Montclair,
New Jersey. She contributes regularly to the sports business journal
Baseball America, ESPN, W Fast Company, Men's Health, New Jersey Monthly,
(01:27):
Bodybuilding dot Com, and other outlets at MLB dot com.
From January two thirteen through January two thousand eighteen, she
established herself as an authority on baseball fitness and injuries
and appeared frequently on the MLB Network to discuss her stories.
From two thousand twelve, she was a senior writer for
(01:47):
ESPN Magazine, covering primarily ice hockey, tennis, baseball, and the Olympics.
Lindsay received her undergraduate degree in journalism from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she played yes
varse the softball and Men's Club ice hockey. She is
the oldest grandchild of Yogi and Carmen Barras soever her
last name sounded familiar, that's why she's the granddaughter of
(02:09):
the late Yogi Bearra, and she's a board member at
the Yogi Barra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls,
New Jersey. She's amazing. I've read many of her articles
and she just she walks the walks, she's an athlete,
she is super smart, and those are the only guests
I bring on this show. So when we come back
from the break, we're gonna talk all about ice. And
(02:29):
I think you're going to be pretty amazed at what
the current science tells us. So when we come back,
Lindsay Bera and we are back, could not be more excited, because,
(02:49):
as I say all the time, I only bring you
the best guests. And I've been speaking with Lindsay and
she's amazing, And this is someone you want to talk
to you. She walks, the walks, she talks to talk.
She's an athlete. She played, as I said in her bio,
she played hockey, which I love. I'm a hockey guy myself.
But watching her clips, she knows sports. She knows injuries.
She knows what we're talking about. And we're gonna talking
(03:11):
about icing, We're gonna talk about cold therapy, and we're
gonna talk about it in two ways, right, Wendy. We're
gonna talk about it when it comes to injury and recovery. Yes,
all right, And this is a this is a tough topic, Lindsay, right,
because people have been icing forever, right, and it's tough
to change. Absolutely. I was at ESPN magazine for so
long and then at MLB and you walk into locker
(03:32):
rooms and all you see is guys with giant, glacial
size ice packs seran wrapped two different parts of their body.
I'm thinking about Aaron Judge with the giant um ice
pack on his shoulder, Lebron James with with ice packs
on both knees and both feet in buckets of ice
while he's doing his interviews. Or you've got Patrick Mahomes
(03:54):
was just in a Direct TV commercials sitting in an
ice bucket. MICHAELA. Schiffrin was in a Visa commercials sitting
in an ice bath. I mean it. They all still
think that this is great, and there is something to
be said if mentally you think it makes you feel better,
But the science is directly, you know, contradicting that feeling,
(04:14):
you know. And I love that, and we'll talk about that,
because that's the thing. The messages always get mixed, right,
and so does it make you feel better? Of course, right,
But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
And as you say in your article, by the way,
and I love just the title cold Heart Truth about
Ice and Your Injuries. That's what we're calling this podcast.
You know, just because it feels good doesn't mean it's right.
And the science now, the most recent science, and by
(04:35):
the way, we'll talk about the guy who actually came
up with the rice acronym says he was wrong. Uh well,
and also we're also talking about, like when we say
the most recent science, there's a study as far back
as six that said when you when you apply ice
for a prolonged period of time, the primeability of lymphatic
vessels increases, which causes a backflow of fluid into the
(04:56):
interstitial space and actually increases local swelling at the area
of where you're putting ice, as opposed to decreasing it,
which is what you're trying to do. Right, So this
is okay, And so that's I mean, how many thirty
nine is a thirty four years ago, right, So it's
not necessarily that we're talking about new science. There actually
has not been a single peer reviewed, concrete, definitive study
(05:21):
that says that ice is good for you for anything
other than reduction of pain, right, And like if your
kid runs down the steps and smashes his base into
a doorknob, and he's screaming bloody murder, and you're gonna
put an ice pack on it because it's gonna make
him stop crying. Great, do it wonderful. He's not going
to keep it on there long enough to do any
damage anyway. He's gonna sit there for two minutes and
then go back to his legos. Right, So in that case,
(05:44):
you use the ice, you know, if you're needing to
stop an immediate pain response, right, But that's not what
we're talking about here. When we ice things after difficult
workouts or after surgeries and whatnot, you're generally not in
this excruciating amount of pain that needs to be managed.
You're doing this for a different reason because you think
it's going to decrease inflammation and accelerate your healing process.
(06:08):
But the actual science says that it will actually, over
the course of time, increase is swelling and lengthen the
healing process. So you need to have that inflammation. Every
study that we have now that actually talks about inflammation.
So when Dr Marken, and we'll get back to him,
invented the rice protocol in the seventies, inflammation wasn't actually
(06:30):
even in the research at that point, they didn't know
what it was, right. So now we know that inflammation
brings all the side of kinds and the I g
F one and the things that we need to repair
our muscle tissue. And if you halt that inflammatory response,
you delay that repair and clean up crew from getting
into the injured area. And then once the tissue rewarms,
(06:53):
the inflammatory response is going to resume anyway, So you're
just delaying your body's ability to fix what ails it right.
And your body, by the way, the most intelligently engineered
thing we've ever seen. Just let it do its job.
Like why are we all trying to you know, combat evolution.
You know, we figured it out and and we're and
we're trying to stop that. And I talked about that
(07:14):
all the time, lindsay that the body, as you just said,
and I used those very words, you know, really smart machine,
let it do its thing oftentimes. And this is a
great example we we don't and the body and I
love in your article you even talked about like cavemen
didn't come home after like rolling their ankle and pack
it in ice and stop moving. No, they chased after
their dinner if they wanted to eat yeah, and and
(07:36):
putting pressure that that's another study that I have in there.
I don't know the year, but like, there's a study
that when you load damage tissue Journal of American Academy
of Orthopedic Surgeons, I've got your article loading damage tissue
accelerates the healing of bone and muscle tissue, while prolonged
periods of inactivity sitting on your butt on the couch
promote aberrant tissue repair. So you don't want aborant tissue repair.
(08:00):
You want to be able to use your tissue in
the way it was intended, right exactly? Was so rest
and ice not so much? And back to you were
talking about Dr Merkin Harvard, Uh, the Rice protocol. What
I love this too because people just love this. Where
did it originally come from? So what was the incident
that you talked about? So the incident that I talked
(08:20):
about in the story was in nineteen sixty two when
a young kid named Everett Knowls jumped on a freight
train in Somerville, Massachusetts on his walk home from school
because he thought the freight train would you get him
home a little bit more quickly, And he wasn't paying
attention and he smashes his shoulder into a stone bridge structure,
which this is horrific, and it severed his arm. Basically,
(08:41):
the boy is rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital and there's
a surgeon there, Dr Ronald Malt, another Harvard guy like Merkin,
he makes this historic call while he's deciding how to
reattach Noel's severed arm. He takes the the the arm
and puts it on ice. Right, So this works. This
is the first time in history that reattachment surgery like
(09:03):
this is successful, and doctors begin using the same protocol
across the board to treat all damaged tissue, especially in
the sports world. Now, I do think it is worth
noting that whenever you like, like if someone chops off
their fingers with lawn mower and whatnot and you put
it in a cooler or they're saving it to be reattached,
they wrap that thing in like eighty seven layers of
(09:24):
gauze and plastic to prevent the ice from touching it
because they know it will damage the tissue. Right, So
doctors start doing this to decrease swelling and pain from
sports injuries. Right. So Everett Knowles is in sixty two.
Then there's this famous photo of Sandy Kofax that runs
in Sports Illustrated, I believe in sixty five with his
(09:44):
legendary left arm and a vat of ice. And it
kind of goes on from there in when Dr Merkin
writes his sports Medicine book, which kind of becomes the Bible.
He basically he wasn't doing anything based on extended research.
He was are phrasing what doctors were doing at the time, right,
They were resting, they were icing, they were compressing, wrapping
(10:05):
things tightly. And he adds the E on the end
of it to make rice because Rick is just not
that catchy, right, And then we end up with the
phrase rice is nice, right, And we're doing this for
years and years and years now. Dr Merkin who is
eighty five years old now he lives down in Florida
and he's like a regular blogger and podcaster and whatnot.
(10:27):
God bless him. And he's now telling anybody who will
listen that he was wrong about rest and ice, that
it actually decelerates your healing process as opposed to accelerates
your healing process. Yeah, and another study you talk about
in the article two thousand ten Federation of American Society's
for Experimental Biology Journal again, but back what you said
at the start. When tissues damaged, you know it's necessary
(10:49):
to let the inflammatory response happen, and constricting the blood
vessels is not the way to do it right. No,
and and it also the other the other, the big
studies I like these two dozen, fIF teen, fourteen and
fifteen ones that show that code word what our immersion
after training substantially reduces your long term gains and muscle
mass and strength. So basically you're negating the adaptation that
(11:12):
you're trying to get from a workout. Because at the
end of the day, this is something that I don't
really think that a lot of people understand. Soreness and
injurery injury in a muscle are only different in degree,
not kind. Right. Your soreness is because you have all
these micro tears in your muscle from your workout, and
then your body repairs them and the muscle comes back stronger.
(11:32):
And injury is when the tear is bigger. Right, So
it's a small tear or a big tear, it's the
same stuff, just at at an accelerated rate. So athletes
are like, oh, but I'm not injured. I'm doing this
so I can train harder tomorrow. And they get in
the ice bath or whatever it is that they're doing,
and they're negating all of the good things that they've
(11:52):
done for themselves in their workout, and it's just crazy.
See that's so interesting, and most people, as you said,
don't even get to that point. Right. So we're talking
about recovery and what that study and it's the two
fourteen study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
And what Lindsay saying is it's it's it's um diminishing
the results of your workout, the effects of your workout.
(12:14):
So that's pretty amazing, I mean, substantially reduces long term gains, right,
And that's crazy. The one of the things I do
want to make a point of this is not to
say that things like whim Hoff, like where he does
like the psycho cold water immersion for a couple of
minutes two and then uses the breathing to accelerate. That's
a little bit of a different channel mechanism. That's a
(12:35):
different thing. We're not like, this is not whim Hoff,
And most people who are sitting in an ice bath
for twenty minutes, you're not whim Hoff either, so like
this is not that's not what we're talking about. So
then then the other the big question that we get
to here is well, all right, if I'm not going
to ice my entries, what am I supposed to do? Right? So,
your body brings all of this stuff, The repair and
(12:56):
clean up crew comes in to um take care of
the damage that you've done to your tissue. And so
you have inflammation which brings that process there, and then
you have swelling. And there are really two different things.
Inflammation is the necessary process by which your body heals.
Swelling is what happens when you let that inflammation sit
(13:18):
around and congest the area and suffocate healthy cells, and
you can actually cause more damage. So to decrease swelling
the byproduct of inflammation, you how do you do that? Right? So,
all of these particles that go in there to repair tissue,
they're too large to be evacuated through blood vessels and stuff.
(13:39):
They have to be evacuated through your lymphatic system. Your
lymphatic system is a passive system, and stuff is only
pumped through the lymphatic vessels via the contraction of the
muscles around the vessels. So what does that mean you
have to move. Okay, So you now look, we all
understand that you're not going to be like squatting on
(14:00):
a tour in a c L or you know, running
stuff like that. But you need to find a safe
way to load the damage tissue so you can flex
the muscles and and and pump out that inflammation. Right now,
no matter how bad your springing ankle is, you're probably
going to be able to like lay on your back,
stick your foot in their and do an alphabet or
(14:22):
some ankle circles or or or foot pumps or something
like that, right um. And if you're so injured that
you can't do that, there's so many devices on the
market now, like the mark Pro, the Complex, the power Dot,
the Firefly, all these little stem devices that you know,
there you go, there's your commercial. You can put these.
You can put these little stim units on there and
(14:44):
they will contract the muscles for you to pump out
that inflammation. One other thing I want to say is
that these things are not attends unit. Attends unit just
desensitizes the area DEADNS pain. This is a different kind
of frequency that creates a non fatiguing contraction and that
pumps the muscles a little different than tents and and
most of those websites have very good comparison information on
(15:06):
it if you were to check it out. But so
if you're if you're so hurt that you can't find
a way to walk on it, or just if you
have a sprained ankle, just stand on it, like load it.
You don't have to jump on it. If you can't
find a way to do that. There's all these devices
out there that will do it for you. And that's
a huge change, right when you know, I'm fifty one,
and I know back in the day when you got injured,
broke something or whatever, they told, you know, don't do anything.
(15:30):
And obviously they've changed their tune with that. You know,
you get your hip done now and they have you
on a bike the next day. They want you moving
as soon as possible, but not so with the ice, right,
so they kind of went off the rest part, but
not the ice part. Yeah, they're they're even things like
Achilles tendon repairs and a c LS. Like, you're not
immobilized the way you used to be. They do watch
you moving, but the ice and I think I think
(15:51):
some of it is for pain, but most pain can
be alleviated if you a decongest the area or be
just put yourself into a different position, you know, like
you can. There's ways to alleviate pain. And we say,
like back then they didn't have the stim units and whatnot.
But like, what did our parents always used to say
to us, walk it off right? It was it was
(16:11):
tough love. But there's a lot of logic in that, yes,
walk it off right. I think we had the same dad, right,
we all had the same dad in nine. But that
also went for concussions and everything else. Lindsay, well, and again,
you have to be smart, and you can't. I told
you I played hockey with boys my whole life. I've
had seven concussions. I've been trying. I've been trying to
(16:33):
walk that last one off for three years and I'm not.
That's a whole another story. If I forget your name
by the end of this show, that's that's my excuse, right,
too many times having the bell rung. But that's what
I love. And again, I just love your whole philosophy.
And that's what this show is about. It's it's the science,
it's the and I now call it my acronym Lindsay,
is the RWs real world stuff I call it. You
(16:54):
can put the other word there, but it's as you
started the show by saying, it's like, Okay, if your kid,
you know, hangs his knee, you can put ice on
it to make him feel better in the moment, but
just know the science is you actually want that to happen.
So that's you know, that's the difference. You can feel good,
but over time, you want the body to do its
natural thing. And there's so many professional athletes who are
(17:17):
sort of they're starting to get it. Um. You see
a lot of pitchers in the big leagues now who
are not icing, like Corey Kluber, for example, he's in
the story, and that's health. He hasn't ice his arm
since he made the big leagues. And Corey Kluber's pitch
two innings for like the last eight years or something.
There you go, don't call me on the stats. But yeah,
So he gets he gets off the mound and he'll
go he does banned work to kind of flush out
(17:39):
the area, and then he'll spend twenty or thirty minutes
with a mark pro on his arm, which is one
of those stim units that used to be. Chip Shaefer
is the performance guy for the Bulls, and he talks
about how in Michael Jordan's day he used to have
twenty four ice packs in the room. Bove guys put
an ice pack on each knee, and he doesn't do
that anymore. He'd rather have you on the bike for
a little while, or or using a stem thing, or
(18:01):
just doing some sort of very low level active recovery
to pump out the information. Kelly Starrett I think is
a genius pt and he talks about even if you've
already worked out in the morning, you should or at
some point in the day, you should still be getting
that ten to twelve thousand steps a day because it
just contracts the muscles and flushes things out and keeps
(18:23):
you from becoming sore. If you look at our lifestyles
the way we live now, we all spend maybe an
hour working out, and then the rest of the day
we're basically on our butts. Back in the day, even
if you worked out, jobs were you know you, people
walked and biked more. The jobs are more manual people
who are doing stuff moving around all day. That's not
the way we live our lives anymore, especially now we're
(18:43):
all in the houses all day. You have to get
up and move and and use your muscles as God intended.
I love that. And you know, my real world kind
of experience was that first time I ever did the
Hawaii iron Man. You know, crazy, so hard, and the
next day I'm celebrating. I'm at a you know, restaurant
with the bloody Mary on all e drive, you know,
and what do I see, lindsay, like dozens and dozens
(19:07):
of athletes doing what you're talking about, running, you know,
the easy run the day after the race. You know,
they're not ten hours finished or whatever it was. But
we're meant to move right, we're men, and it's the
simple stuff. But you can't you can't sell that, right,
So there's no product. You can't sell the cryotherapy uh
as as walking, but you know that's what the science
and just the natural bodies mechanisms are meant to do.
(19:29):
And the other thing like people say like, oh I
can't go for another walker, I can't ride the bike.
I already worked out. I'm tired. Jesse Thomas, right elite
tray athlete, like he's doing half iron Man races that
take five hours and then when he's done, he goes
out on like a leisurely ride for another hour. Okay,
the guy's doing seven hours of activity. You can do
a little something else after your thirty minute hit class, right,
(19:51):
like not that I'm calling everyone whimps, but like um,
but and then the other thing you make a good
point to there's no, there's not a lot of you know,
walking is not a product. It's a technology that we
all have without having to buy anything. Right. I think
one of the big problems that we have with this
whole icing message is that so many doctors, orthopedic surgeons
(20:14):
are invested in companies that create icing products like the
cryle cuff and the hyper ice and all of these things,
and they send people who have had surgery home with
the prescription for this thing like put your leg in
the in the cryo cop do this, do that. And
they've been doing this for decades and decades and decades,
And I think part of the fear is that if
(20:36):
the doctors come out now and say icing is wrong,
we live in a very ligitious society. Everyone they've ever
done surgery on who they told to go home and
ice who didn't have the exact outcome, They wanted from
surgery could then turn around and sue them for telling
them to use ice. They know it's wrong, they know
it makes no sense, but it's become so entrenched over
(20:57):
these years that it's like kind of impossible to dig
out of that whole. I love that, so that's why
it continues. Yes, I'm a fitness expert in the lawsuits
now all the time. It's so sad how many of
these type of cases now where you know, with more
people exercising and more people getting hurt, and it's just
super sad. But that's why, you know, people say, well,
if my doctor keeps telling me to do it, that's
you know, one of the reasons. And that's what I
(21:18):
love about this show, Lindsay is. And I've left so
much money on the table over the years. My wife
wants to kill me because people reach out to me
all the time about products, you know, rep my product,
and I go absolutely not because I don't believe. You know,
science says it doesn't work, and I don't care how
much you know you're gonna pay me, I won't do it.
It's about the science and what we're selling here is
the information right, and that's why I love you know this,
(21:40):
my gosh, like have you always so you're playing hockey
at a young age, That's that's what sports were you playing.
I played soccer, I played ice hockey, and I played softball.
Growing up, I played a little basketball as well. I've
always been like a hiker and a cyclist and a runner.
But I played at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
on the tar heel. I played varsity soft ball, and
(22:00):
then I played men's club hockey as well, and then
post college we were talking before, I'm I'm I've been
doing CrossFit for about twelve years. I did a lot
of triathlons for a long time. I am really into hiking.
I've hiked in the Alps and the Dolomites and the
Andies and and my brother and I had to kill
manjar O. We've we've hyped all over the world. I'm
basically just super hyperactive, and it's getting worse as I
(22:21):
get older. So I don't know what's I don't know
what's in store for me in the next ten years.
But I as you say, like, I've never so I
had a labor repair surgery, I've I've torn calf muscles,
I've had a lot of things wrong with me, and
and as long as I can remember, in college, I
used to fight with our trainers. I would go to
my PT and do my rehab and they'd want to
(22:43):
send me put put ice on me for ten minutes
before I went back out into the world. Now are
in college. Our training room was down to the football
stadium and I had to walk about fifteen minutes back
to my dorm, and a lot of it was uphill,
and I'm like, if you put that ice on me,
I'm not gonna be able to move and I'm gonna
be gimping up this hill and it's going to be terrible.
So I don't want the ice. I want to walk
(23:04):
up the hill. And inevitably, when I got finished walking
up the hill, I always felt a little better. So
I think I sort of intuitively didn't like it. But
also I don't know these people, like they say it
makes them feel better sitting in a cold tub, is
why do you want to do that? It's horrible. Yeah,
I'm so with you on that. I did it once.
I felled, you know, after a training for an ironmy
and I felled a you know, big plastic garbage can
(23:25):
with ice and water. I got in it and then
I hurt myself getting out. It was ver I never
or like if you must, if you must, do the cold,
like like do the freezing cold for like thirty seconds
and getting the hot shower at least that simulates your
lymphatics and gets go. It's all about getting that lymphatic
response so the hot cold will will pump it. Contrast
(23:46):
therapy I love. Sitting in the cold tub does nothing
and it just it's not Also, you can't get it
cold enough anyway to make it work. Like and if
you have a problem like deep in your hip join
or something, and you're putting an ice pack on the outside,
like you really think that cold is going to get
all the way in there to where it needs to
be if it was cold, and I know you're just
giving yourself frostbite on the outside of your hip, right,
(24:09):
It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, No, I'm still
with you and so helpful for people like That's exactly
what this show is forced to give. You know, the science,
and you know you've walked to walk with all the
professional athletes too, and you know they're gonna keep doing it.
And for the reasons we outlined, and it doesn't mean
it's right just because doctors are doing it, just because
professional athletes are doing it and they do it for
(24:29):
a different reason to you know, which isn't always the
right reason, right. Um, how do people follow you so
Twitter at Lindsay Barra on Twitter? You can same same
thing on LinkedIn. I am one of those archaic people
who still doesn't have an Instagram. I apologize. Oh I
wish I didn't. You know, I'm too old for it.
But it's the new world, and you have so many
other articles. I'll just say, like the great one on
(24:50):
um oh Dr Fauci that that was just in men's health. Yeah,
he's still seventy nine years old, night working nineteen hour
days on the front lines against still funding time to run.
It's important for physical health and for our sanity. So
if you think you're too old or you think you
don't have enough time both around. When it comes to
so read all of Lindsay stuff, she's amazing. Definitely gonna
(25:11):
have you back because I want to talk more about
just sports and stuff like that. Thank you so much.
I mean this has been so helpful for people like awesome.
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, all right,
so Lindsay Barra again. Check her at Lindsay Barra dot com.
It's Lindsay s A Y Barra b E r r
A dot com. Check her out. Amazing, Thanks so much
and look forward to having me back. Great, thank you.
All right, we'll be right back after this short break
(25:44):
and we are back. How great is Lindsay Barrett? How smart?
Oh wow? What just helpful segment. Now. I know some
of you are probably still saying, oh, you're gonna ice it? Well,
you know, this is the science. This is the science
and brought to you from someone you know. And Lindsey
(26:06):
and I were talking before the show, like she's not
a doctor, but you know what, some of the smartest
people I know are the ones who research, study, live it.
You know, she's been around it obviously, being the grandchild
of Yogui Barrow, around professional athletes, super smart athlete herself,
and I love it the latest science. So there you
have it. When it comes to cold it's gonna make
(26:26):
you feel better. But science says, and there are other studies,
by the way that that go against this. I've talked
about contributed some articles that you know, there's some studies
that show this, you know, the benefits potentially, But we
just went through some pretty strong arguments that the body
(26:46):
needs to heal itself naturally, and that is my overarching
philosophy to health and wellness. Keep it simple, excessive moderation, right,
it's the simple stuff that works. The body is a
really smart machine. I love that she said that. You know,
I tend to have people on that I'm gonna say
agree with, but I have the same philosophy because it's
(27:07):
about simplicity. We're not selling products. And it's another thing too,
not here hawking you know some products. I'm giving you
the information. Lindsay's here giving you the information so you
can make the most informed choices about your health. And
we can make it sound really complicated, and we can,
you know, talk about stuff that's against the norm, but
(27:31):
this is against the norm for those reasons. And I
love that she talked about where it came from. And
I often say, you know, look at my old football
team and coaches. They're doing stuff that long ago we
weren't probably shouldn't do it, but they do it because
that's how everyone else did it before them, and their
coaches did it, and so it's really hard to change.
(27:52):
It's really hard to change. And if it feels good,
you know. Quite often I'll say, if something feels good,
then fine, if you know, But if it's preventing your recovery.
And the study she talked about, now the studies are
saying it it may decrease the effectiveness of your workouts,
(28:14):
that's interesting. So the bottom line is I'm gonna be sore.
And I looked that she said too. I never liked
ice paths personally, as I said, I got in one,
made one and hurt myself getting out, like you know, fell.
So that's the science, and that's what this show is about,
debunking the myths and just looking at the current wisdom
and saying, is that the right thing? And the recovery
(28:37):
market has never been bigger, as I started the show
by saying, but that doesn't mean it's right. So I
would rather you do things that feel good that might
not prevent the healing process and won't decrease the results
of your workout. But that's me all right. So I
hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you so much to
Lindsay Barra. What an amazing woman. I will definitely have
(29:00):
her back to talk about some other things. She is uh,
super smart in many different areas and an athlete herself,
as she talked about. So thank you Lindsey bart checker
out Lindsay Barra dot com. If you haven't rated this show,
please do so, and if you have rated it, thank you.
And I love the comments. I've been doing whole shows
based on questions and comments, so please if you can
(29:21):
leave them, go right ahead do that as well. You
can contact me through Fitness disrupted dot com. Go there,
shoot me an email and Tom h Fit is my Twitter.
Tom h Fit is Instagram. And if you share social
media about the show, which I appreciate highly, hashtag fitness disrupted.
All right, I am Tom Olwen. Thanks one final time
(29:42):
to Lindsay Barra for taking the time. Talked all about
the cold heart truth about icing your injuries. I want
you to look your best, feel your best, and live
your best life as long as possible, with those years
to be quality years. And there are three things we
can control, how much we move, what we put in
our mouths, and our attitudes, and that is awesome. I'm
(30:05):
Tom Holland, exercise physiologist. This is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in yourself.
Fitness Disrupted is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
(30:26):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.