ice

In my opinion, the best time to ice is only when you are in pain. Otherwise if you ice, it wears on your arm (ie, lactic acid stay in your muscles). Make sure that after you throw that you do some sort of a cool down exercize such as tubing or a body blade to get rid of that lactic acid build up in your arm. If you do this, you shouldn't have to ice very often.

Iceing your arm for 20 minutes after every start is a good thing.Reduces inflamation-increases blood flow.Then run the day after(or same day if you like).The only time ice is not a good thing is if you will be playing(throwing)the same day or the next day.If ice was not good then MLB teams would not risk thier million$ players by doing it.How many pitchers do you see doing interviews after a game without it?

Actually if you listen to Dick Mills. There is no evidence that ice helps. Actually exercise is better to keep the blood flowing. But pitchers do ice because they "think it works". Ice actually impedes your bodies ability to pump blood to the stressed area to flush out lactic acid. Do you ice after exercising? It's pretty much the same idea. Ice after pitching if your arm is sore but it will also take longer to recover. Bottom line is there are both pros and cons to icing. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer.

It's personal preference. There is no concrete evidence that icing works, but there's also no evidence that it doesn't.

Also, lactic acid is not the culprit of soreness.

Experiment with what works for you and stick with it.

I never did say that lactic acid relates to soreness. I did say that it relates to pain which are two completely different things. Like Big1toe said, there is no right or wrong answer to icing. Although I can tell you from experience that ice didn't help me as much as I thought it would have. I have had epiphisitis (Little League Shoulder) and I have been experiencing elbow pain. Ice has helped for neither of them. Keep stretching it out and don't forget that a burning feeling in that area is fine while doing therapy.

Thanks for the feeback.I guess its up to the indvidual until concrete evidence is put out there.I do agree though that MLB would'nt risk there players if it were a bad thing.I also realize you don't ice after exercise but is'nt pitching a whole different ball of wax? If I remember right your throwing over hand motion is really un natural causing damage that everyday excercise would not do.Just my thoughts. Thanks again,

Currently there is no scientific study that supports icing your arm after pitching. There is only one study in baseball players in Japan, and they concluded that ice only works if you do it together with some type of aerobic exercise for the arm. Many recommend icing the arm only if there is pain or soreness and also they strongly recommend engaging in some type of aerobic exercise after pitching. Many believe that icing decreases blood flow to the affected area and slows down the natural healing process.

I agree that each person's body reacts differently to heat & ice.My body likes ice,heat makes everything worse(the pain).Conversely,I know plenty of relatives & friends that use heat for what ails them.Like Jon said,do what works for you.Have a great season all.

I've noticed (a personal preference) that icing my arm the day after helps the most-sometimes when I ice after, stiffness still arises. Usually the day I pitch I don't feel pain. The day after I pitch the muscles that slow down the arm (mainly located in my back/shoulder blade region) are very stiff. Icing one time for 20min, next day they are perfect. I run after starts, and pretty much every day for HS, but this worked during summer too when I wasn't running as consistently. Once again, personal preference. If one is worried about lactic acid, then do tubing or running and ice. Swelling is the main thing (I've been told, and once again it's a personal condition) that causes ME stiffness-not pain. The ice helps with that. I'd say find a balance of icing, running, and tube/shoulder exercises to do consistently on a schedule around each start/outing.