One of the biggest mistakes that you can make is to ignore aches and pains when they are minor.
Your body is very good at telling you things; the trick is learning how to distinguish between minor tears that are a normal part of the training process and are getting repaired and major tears that could lead to an injury.
The safest course of action for keeping tears in the minor category and not allowing them to become major injury causing tears is to remember to ice early and ice often.
The first and easiest way to do that is to just grab a bag of ice and slap it on your sore spots.
Leave the bag of ice on your leg or joint for 20 minutes, and then take it off for 20 minutes.
Put a new bag of ice back on for another 20 minutes if necessary and repeat the process.
In general, you do not want to ice for more than 20 minutes at a time.
When using the bag of ice method, you generally do not want to use full ice cubes, since there will not be a lot of surface area from the ice contacting your skin from within the ice bag.
Crush the ice into smaller pieces first, or else use the old bag of peas method.
The bag of peas method is very simple.
Just take an old bag of frozen peas and slap them onto your body where you are sore instead of putting together a bag of ice.
The size of the peas is perfect for conforming the bag of ice around your muscle, and they do not require any work other than pulling them right out of the freezer.
The peas will need to be refrozen after each use, and I recommend labeling the peas so that you do not accidentally eat them later.
Frozen peas that have been thawed a few dozen times really do not taste very good.
The nice thing about using a bag of ice, whether you are using ice or a bag of peas, is that you do not need to do anything other than position the bag on the sore muscles and then wait.
There is no thought needed, there is no effort needed, and you can easily multitask.
If you are using a plastic bag, then you generally do not need to worry about frostbite.
If it is too cold for you, you can just place a paper towel under the bag to get most of the cold but not all of it concentrated on your skin.
Your body is very good at telling you things; the trick is learning how to distinguish between minor tears that are a normal part of the training process and are getting repaired and major tears that could lead to an injury.
The safest course of action for keeping tears in the minor category and not allowing them to become major injury causing tears is to remember to ice early and ice often.
The first and easiest way to do that is to just grab a bag of ice and slap it on your sore spots.
Leave the bag of ice on your leg or joint for 20 minutes, and then take it off for 20 minutes.
Put a new bag of ice back on for another 20 minutes if necessary and repeat the process.
In general, you do not want to ice for more than 20 minutes at a time.
When using the bag of ice method, you generally do not want to use full ice cubes, since there will not be a lot of surface area from the ice contacting your skin from within the ice bag.
Crush the ice into smaller pieces first, or else use the old bag of peas method.
The bag of peas method is very simple.
Just take an old bag of frozen peas and slap them onto your body where you are sore instead of putting together a bag of ice.
The size of the peas is perfect for conforming the bag of ice around your muscle, and they do not require any work other than pulling them right out of the freezer.
The peas will need to be refrozen after each use, and I recommend labeling the peas so that you do not accidentally eat them later.
Frozen peas that have been thawed a few dozen times really do not taste very good.
The nice thing about using a bag of ice, whether you are using ice or a bag of peas, is that you do not need to do anything other than position the bag on the sore muscles and then wait.
There is no thought needed, there is no effort needed, and you can easily multitask.
If you are using a plastic bag, then you generally do not need to worry about frostbite.
If it is too cold for you, you can just place a paper towel under the bag to get most of the cold but not all of it concentrated on your skin.