Heating pad for recovery

I've recently started incorporating use of a heating pad thinking it might help circulation around my finger tendons to aid in recovery/healing.

For example, after a hard day of climbing, perform a combination of gentle tendon/pulley massaging and alternately wrap each hand in a heating pad for a few seconds or minutes (depending on how hot it is).

Any thoughts on this? Have any training books ever discussed the use of a heating pad as a general recovery aid?

i would normally soak my hands, sometimes elbows and shoulders, in ice cold water, or in the creek if there is one nearby the crag, right after a hard day of climbing. no scientific proof, but it sure feels a lot better that same night and the day after.

I think heat is for muscles. Tendons and ligaments need ice.

heat will promote swelling, ice is the ticket.

Nick Mardirosian wrote:heat will promote swelling, ice is the ticket.

+1

If they are swollen, Ice is better. Making the area cool will constrict blood vessels and reduce blood circulation. So heating the area will increase the circulation, and your joints may swell. Heat will help with recovery but not immediately after the gym. I think heat will work better if you experience DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) a day or two after your workout. This will increase circulation and the 'damaged' red blood cells will be flushed out from the affected area.

Roots wrote:I think heat is for muscles. Tendons and ligaments need ice.

How do you get the heat on just the muscle and the ice on just the tendon or ligament?

Hey OP, I don't think there is much research to support heat OR ice after training as effective at accelerating recovery. People are posting very incomplete information here. Most of their advice pertains more to injury treatment.

Some studies have shown contrast baths help, but others have shown little results.

I have had some distance runner friends say they feel whole body ice baths after hard runs helps their recovery significantly. (I'm not sure how they handle the mental recovery, though.) That is purely anecdotal, though.

I think putting a heating pad (especially a dry heating pad) on your fingers is pretty pointless. You could do some gentle, active range of motion with your fingers and I guarantee you will deliver far more blood flow to the tissues than whatever occurs through applying heat to the skin.

Ya, I've heard ice for to reduce swelling, like immediately after an injury, then heat after the swelling has subsided.

But I was thinking about moderate heat use for regular recovery. So the consensus is that it might help, but probably not as much as massage.

Maybe it helps if your hands are cold, to heat them up before massage.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Aerili wrote: How do you get the heat on just the muscle and the ice on just the tendon or ligament? Hey OP, I don't think there is much research to support heat OR ice after training as effective at accelerating recovery. People are posting very incomplete information here. Most of their advice pertains more to injury treatment. Some studies have shown contrast baths help, but others have shown little results. I have had some distance runner friends say they feel whole body ice baths after hard runs helps their recovery significantly. (I'm not sure how they handle the mental recovery, though.) That is purely anecdotal, though. I think putting a heating pad (especially a dry heating pad) on your fingers is pretty pointless. You could do some gentle, active range of motion with your fingers and I guarantee you will deliver far more blood flow to the tissues than whatever occurs through applying heat to the skin.

Have you seen those cooling sleeves that they keep on the sidelines at college and nfl games? Players come off the field and dunk an arm in there to cool off.

The blurb I heard was that athletes had (at least anecdotally)noticed increased performance on strength training measures while using this thing between sets.

Obviously a different application (post workout recovery vs. intra-exercise recovery) but it makes me wonder: does lowering the temperature of (some) blood moving through a limb change the work capacity of that blood? Does cooler blood remove waste faster from tissue? Maybe cooler tissue absorbs nutrients faster?

There is research done within sports physiology that both heating and cooling are effective means for enhancing circulation, and therefore recovery.

Sam Daley wrote:There is research done within sports physiology that both heating and cooling are effective means for enhancing circulation, and therefore recovery.

There is no conclusive evidence. A quick search of Pubmed brings up an article from Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (a publication that is put out by my certifying organization) from 2011 that states as much (among others I read).

Joseph Stover wrote:But I was thinking about moderate heat use for regular recovery. So the consensus is that it might help, but probably not as much as massage.

Active range of motion (flexing and extending your fingers and wrists) is not the same thing as massage. I do not think there is anything, including massage, that can deliver more blood flow to an area than simply moving the body part in question. Hence, my suggestion of AROM.

The research on massage does not support much for recovery, either, except for perhaps psychological mechanisms.

Hey tks, I haven't seen those things (will have to check that out). The article I mentioned to Sam Daley above states: "To enhance recovery, cryotherapy is widely used. To date, there are limited scientific data to support the use of cryotherapy for recovery."

Also, I do not believe blood itself has the ability to do work; it has no work capacity. There are a lot of complicated biochemical things happening in the body, however, during recovery. Complicated enough that, well, if you have a graduate degree in biochemistry or human phys and specialize in areas related to exercise you might have a decent global understanding of it all.

A 2006 Australian article highlights our current understanding of recovery modalities well:

"After high-intensity exercise, rest alone will return blood lactate to baseline levels well within the normal time period between the training sessions of athletes. The majority of studies examining exercise-induced muscle injury and DOMS have used untrained subjects undertaking large amounts of unfamiliar eccentric exercise. This model is unlikely to closely reflect the circumstances of elite athletes. Even without considering the above limitations, there is no substantial scientific evidence to support the use of the recovery modalities reviewed to enhance the between-training session recovery of elite athletes. Modalities reviewed were massage, active recovery, cryotherapy, contrast temperature water immersion therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, compression garments, stretching, electromyostimulation and combination modalities. Experimental models designed to reflect the circumstances of elite athletes are needed to further investigate the efficacy of various recovery modalities for elite athletes. Other potentially important factors associated with recovery, such as the rate of post-exercise glycogen synthesis and the role of inflammation in the recovery and adaptation process, also need to be considered in this future assessment."

Great info as usual Aerili. It seems to me the above study is indicating that none of the known "recovery" methods are proven for enhancing recovery between regular workouts. Am I correct in reading that it doesn't speak to recovery from injury? Is there data to support efficacy of the "standard" treatments (specifically, cold treatment) for injury recovery?

Also, I assume the muscles react differently than connective tissues to various treatments. Is that correct?

Monomaniac wrote:Great info as usual Aerili. It seems to me the above study is indicating that none of the known "recovery" methods are proven for enhancing recovery between regular workouts. Am I correct in reading that it doesn't speak to recovery from injury?

Correct.

Monomaniac wrote:Is there data to support efficacy of the "standard" treatments (specifically, cold treatment) for injury recovery? Also, I assume the muscles react differently than connective tissues to various treatments. Is that correct?

Yes, but mostly for short term outcomes and not long term.

I don't think there is any evidence that muscles respond differently than other connective tissues.