Temperature changes following quick icing: a brief investigation

Quick icing has been reported as an easy and satisfactory method for facilitating muscle activity, even though the duration of stimulus is brief. The experiments described here attempted to evaluate whether application of ice to a limb for a short time could significantly alter the temperature of the skin to which the ice was applied and consequently lower the temperature of the underlying muscle. Normal subjects were used for the experiments and skin temperatures were measured at 30-second intervals after the completion of quick icing procedures. A 7°C (mean) decrease of skin temperature was recorded during the first minute after icing, and skin temperatures remained significantly depressed during the next 4 minutes. It is proposed that this depression of skin temperature would be a sufficient stimulus to alter the excitability of spinal motor-neurons, in a manner similar to the excitability changes that occur when a limb is immersed in an ice-water bath.