Ok maybe I’m the only one that laughed at the title, but it was worth it!

Anyway, recently while going in and out of overtraining to quickly achieve my goals, I’ve found that ICE is my best friend.

Ice packs, ice baths, contrast showers….all of them are just PHENOMENAL!

They help my muscles recover and they help me prevent any old injuries from flaring up and cause issues.

Ice reduces inflammation and can help reduce swelling. This can help keep injuries from flaring up and cause you to have altered movement patterns. I know that recently with all of the activities I’m doing, my ankle scar tissue has been irritated. So I’ve been taking extra time to do rehab exercises and ICE every single night. Most of the time more than once a day.

And guess what!?! My ankle is actually bothering me less than it has in a while even though I’m doing a ton more things to irritate it!

Icing can also help reduced muscle soreness so that you can take less time off between intense workouts! Icing helps injuries heal…exercising intensely basically causes minor muscle trauma, which when the muscles heal they become stronger – ice speeds this process. YAY!

Icing also helps flush out waste products such as lactic acid from the muscles, which again HELPS YOU RECOVER FASTER!

So if you want to recover faster, you may want to experiment with contrast showers (alternating hot and COLD water) and icing.

I mean who wouldn’t want to recover faster!?!

Anyone else using icing or contrast showers as part of their recovery routine?