Does RICE really work for healing a running injury?

Just stir fried

Is it white rice or brown? White rice isn't as effective.

Traveller wrote:

Is it white rice or brown? White rice isn't as effective.

I seriously debated this at the store and went with brown.

When will I feel the results? Is it really better than icing it?

NewbieToInjury wrote:

I'm relatively new to running - started in April 2015.

I've never had an injury. However, I recently started having pain on the inside of my left ankle. I believe it's tibial tendinitis according to some research I've done.

A runner friend of mine told me to rice it.

I went to the grocery, picked up a bag of rice, and have submersed my ankle in it. But it's not getting better.

Is this a real thing or is he pulling my chain???

you bad advice. Don't stop running, you're not injured. Take that chain that you're wondering if your friend is pulling on you, and run uphill repeats while pushing it up the hill in front of you. I guarantee you, you'll get the last laugh on that so called runner friend of yours. The hardest part of this work out is getting the chain to mimic the motion of a side winder rattle snake. It's not easy to get the hang of, but once you do, you'll find it the most efficient way to do it and you'll drop 5 minutes off of your 5k time to!

Another good work out is snipe hunting after dark on a moonless night. If your not familiar with this w/o just post back and I'll provide instructions.

If you're going to troll me, at least say something funny. I'm trying to understand injuries. Thanks for nothing.

Did you warm it up before using it? It works best at 60 to 70 degrees or until you can comfortably submerge your foot in it without burning yourself. The effectiveness also dependes on what kind of rice you have. Personally I like the basmati.

All these guys are pulling your chain buddy. the R.I.C.E. method is an abbreviation for Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate. It does not mean to get rice and apply it to your injured part. Learn some common sense for yourself, and good luck in life.

I think you're confused.

RICE is for drying out a cell phone dropped in the toilet.

You need DICE.

Drug Injections Constantly Everyday

Don't be such an idiot. You are being ridiculous and far too impatient - no injury magically heals with the first application of rice. It's not a magic potion. It's going to take time. You need to apply rice at least three times a day, every day, for the next 3-6 months until it's completely pain free. No running at all during this time. If after 6 months you do not see any improvement, then you need to go see a doctor. Good luck - and be patient. But I'm sure you will see significant improvement over the next 6 months and will then be free to return to running.

Once a long time ago I had a summer job during college at a barrel factory. My job was loading barrels into semi-trailers. On the third day I dropped a barrel on my thump, smashing it badly. One of my co-workers told me the best thing I could do to relieve the pain was once I got home to soak my thumb in cider.

So when I got home I showed my girlfriend who I was living with, my smashed thumb and recounted to her what my co-worker's advice was. Much to my amazement/chagrin she got a big smile on her face, hiked up her skirt and pulled down her panties. Instantly the pain in my thumb disappeared. Who knew "in cider" meant something else to women?

I hope everybody feels better now!?

You're confused. This works with water logged electronics, not the human body.

It doesn't really have any effect for speeding up the healing of an injury and studies have shown it may even delay healing process as it is essentially interfering with the bodies natural healing process. The inflammation that occurs after an injury releases macrophages and IGF-1 which are essential in the healing process. Ice and anti-inflammatories impede this process of healing cells coming into the area.

eugene project wrote:

All these guys are pulling your chain buddy. the R.I.C.E. method is an abbreviation for Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate. It does not mean to get rice and apply it to your injured part. Learn some common sense for yourself, and good luck in life.

On a more serious note, I have no idea why this happened. I did a 3 week taper for a half marathon on NYE (starting at 50mpw, working down to 30mpw and only 26 miles including the race on the 4th week), then ran one 5 mile very easy run the day after the race, took 3 rest days with no running, and came back running a moderate 8 miler, very easy 5 miler, and a moderate 10 miler. My plan was to do about 35-40 miles this week. It's Thursday and I'm at 26 and now it hurts when I walk.

If this type of injury is from overuse, why now when I've run less miles than normal for a month now? My shoes did just hit 400 miles. I wear shoes with more than average support and actually the model of shoe I currently run in is what I switched to after the last time I had this injury - in 2012.

Makes little sense to me.

I'm stumped.

eugene project wrote:

All these guys are pulling your chain buddy. the R.I.C.E. method is an abbreviation for Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate. It does not mean to get rice and apply it to your injured part. Learn some common sense for yourself, and good luck in life.

On a more serious note, I have no idea why this happened. I did a 3 week taper for a half marathon on NYE (starting at 50mpw, working down to 30mpw and only 26 miles including the race on the 4th week), then ran one 5 mile very easy run the day after the race, took 3 rest days with no running, and came back running a moderate 8 miler, very easy 5 miler, and a moderate 10 miler. My plan was to do about 35-40 miles this week. It's Thursday and I'm at 26 and now it hurts when I walk.

If this type of injury is from overuse, why now when I've run less miles than normal for a month now? My shoes did just hit 400 miles. I wear shoes with more than average support and actually the model of shoe I currently run in is what I switched to after the last time I had this injury - in 2012.

Makes little sense to me.

I'm stumped.

MICE is much better.

Rest does nothing but prolong and increase the injuries.

shavas wrote:

It doesn't really have any effect for speeding up the healing of an injury and studies have shown it may even delay healing process as it is essentially interfering with the bodies natural healing process. The inflammation that occurs after an injury releases macrophages and IGF-1 which are essential in the healing process. Ice and anti-inflammatories impede this process of healing cells coming into the area.

As I say all the time...

RICE is bad for you, what you need it MEAT.

if you heat the rice before you put it on your ankle it may help.

Heat the area before you use it so that the muscle/tendons are warmer and not as tight (really does help with this injury).

You are trying to come back to soon if you're doing 10 miles moderate for a 40 mile week, that's ridiculous.

Overuse injuries take a long time to build - you probably got it right at the edge in the race. The longer you are running the more your form degrades and all the little support muscles (like the posterior tibial m.) are very prone to injury. So a long race is going to get that muscle to seize up and now it's not working right and tendon is pulling.

Go get some massage. Can do A.R.T. or Graston too.

R.I.C.E. is antiquated and been replaced by P.O.L.I.C.E.

Protection, Optimal Loading, Ice, Compression, Elevation

The key difference, and what makes RICE protocol inferior, is the "Rest" component. Totally resting an injury leads to problems of disuse, and when returning to activity it's easy to re-injury, partly because people overdo it.

Protection/Optimal Loading means you don't completely Rest, you provide some stimulus to prevent decay, e.g. running in water, alter G treadmill for the rich, or some form of cross training, and you must do so with protection/limits.

One has to be reasonable - a bone break or serious fracture will require complete rest.

CA rice wrote:

You are trying to come back to soon if you're doing 10 miles moderate for a 40 mile week, that's ridiculous.

I hate to say it but you are right. Even 8, first run back, was probably too much. Combine both of those and bam, perhaps that's where the injury came from. I will say... I'm using moderate to describe how it felt. It was abut 10 secs/mile slower than my normal 'easy' pace, but the effort was a bit harder than usual.

As I said in my original post, I'm still new at this. That was my 2nd half marathon ever, and I thought 3 days off would be sufficient to recover and come back to 40 miles when I've been running 50 regularly. I was going to count that as my 'long run'. Ah well.