Is (Non-Injury-Related) Inflammation a Bad Thing?

[Steve P]

One of my old coaches would encourage us to take ice baths after hard runs. We would fill a tub with cold water and pour ice in it before submersing our legs. I believe his motivation was to decrease the inflammation in our muscles so we wouldn't be so sore, etc. I tried it a few times, but it was unpleasant or even painful.

According to our friend Wikipedia, "In the absence of inflammation, wounds and infections would never heal and progressive destruction of the tissue would compromise the survival of the organism."

So it seems like inflammation is the body's way of naturally healing.

Sure, inflammation can be the sign of an injury. But when that is likely not the case, why does it make sense to limit inflammation? Wouldn't that slow the healing process? Why not apply heat to temporarily accelerate inflammation so you can heal faster?

I'm sure there are reasonable answers to this. I'm just trying to understand. Any ideas?

[Jon Allen]

http://fastrunningblog.com/forum/index.php/topic,260.0.html

http://fastrunningblog.com/forum/index.php/topic,52.0.html
And to quote Sean Sundwall, one of your Olympic Trials qualifiers, "Ice baths are actually good for another reason.

When you get in an ice bath, blood rushes from your legs to the core of your body in an attempt to keep the core of you functioning. IN other words, your body says, "screw your legs, we've got a heart and a brain and lungs to save."

After about 10-15 minutes, you hop out of the ice bath and the body basically says "crap, we may be able to save those legs afterall" and rushes blood in the tiny capillaries in your damaged legs that so desperately need blood flow. It's all about stimulating blood flow so that repair can be accelerated."

[Steve P]

Thanks for pointing out those other threads. I guess I didn't search comprehensively enough.

I read through them, but I'm still not sure I understand very well. A lot of people's comments are based on personal experience, and some people seem to respond better to hot or cold. But it seems like there should be an approach that makes most sense from a scientific point of view.

Sean seems to be saying that blood flow to the legs (after going to the core) is key. But I'm not sure where inflammation fits in. Does this blood flow cause inflammation, which then helps the healing process? Or does the cold-then-blood-flow process reduce inflammation and thus is more efficient somehow?