Icing Shoulder After Pitching

[riseball]

Ice slows blood flow. Heat increases blood flow. DD's ortho has recommended ice only if she's gone too far, and only after she's finished for the day.

My understanding is that icing will initially decrease the flow of blood to a point. After which more blood is moved to the area. Which is why you should not do it for an extended period of time to treat an injury.

 

[SoCalASABlue]

I've been looking at this topic online to ice or not to ice after pitching. Feedback here would be welcome. Thanks

Like many topics on this site, you'll find people for and people against a pitcher icing. If the pitcher BELIEVES it helps, then it helps - regardless of the expert opinions of others.

 

[Striker]

It was mentioned that OU's Paige Parker was getting daily ice baths during the finals. Over 1,000 pitches in WCWS. That's crazy.

 

[Jquick823]

My DD catches and we ice when things get banged up. Foul off the shoulder, ice... Caught 4 games in a weekend, no ice... To me ice is for medical purposes to reduce swelling caused by injury of some kind.

But a lot of things are mental and if it mentally helps then I suggest doing it. Similar to our CF always touching the ball before our pitcher every inning, doesn't make the pitcher throw better but that one time she didn't touch the ball and the pitcher got shelled it was because she didn't touch the ball.

 

[Rocketech1]

I don't think you can look at college and professional athletes and say "look, Cat Osterman ices after games, so should I.." because we don't know if they have had chronic injuries for years and NEED the ice to reduce the swelling. I will continue to maintain that for the typical 18U pitcher and below, there really is no need to ice after every outing as there should not be swelling from normal pitching activities. I have even seen 8U and 10U pitchers ice after games and that's just silly and a waste of time.