Last night, as I was dressing out for my karate class, I took a couple of ibuprofen because my knees were a little stiff and sore. One of my fellow students saw and tsk-tsked me. She claims that taking ibuprofen before a workout increases the chances of injury or re-injury by masking pain warning signs (if that makes sense).
Anybody know if this is true? It makes a certain amount of sense, but I also think that reducing inflammation before a workout could help protect an old injury.
BTW, I didn’t pull any muscles and my knees are no worse, and maybe a little better. For what it’s worth.
Yeah if you have some old injuries, consulting a doctor is your best bet.
However, if you’re simply worried about your muscles being sore afterward, taking Ib beforehand really does work better than taking it after a workout. Doing so was recommended to me by a sports doctor friend of mine while I was in college.
My oral surgeon told me to start taking it once every six hours before I had my wisdom teeth out (starting 24 hours before) to reduce pain, swelling and bleeding.
Been my experience that ibuprophen or anything else over the counter does not relieve pain in an effective enough way for you to reinjure yourself. It will however eat a big old hole in your stomach if you abuse it.
Better to warm up beforehand, stretch after warmup and after class, then ice the injury and take Ibuprofen afterwards. If there’s a change for reinjury, you may as well take some time off before going back to class. If it’s chronic, you should really do some rehab. Anyway, the ibuprofen probably won’t mask any sharp pains that would be indicative of injury, but its psychological impact could be to make you work out harder because you don’t fear the pain.
its not how often you take advil - its how many in a 24 hour period - if you do not exceed the recommended amount, then it should not cause any damage to your stomach.
if you are injured or something hurts you should probably not take advil just to work out, unless you absolutely HAVE to (professional athlete, etc.)
being an athlete, there have been times that I could not have made it without a little Vitamin A (Advil) fix.
if something does hurt, I usually try to do at least one workout without taking anything to see if its a real injury and not just minor aches and pains - if it doesn’t get aggravated then the next day I dope the hell out of it.
Well I’ve got to disagree with you on the ulcer factor. I didn’t abuse Advil at all. As a matter of fact I tried not to use it whenever possible. But I had a long term recovery and I used it often enough. When I complained to the doctor about my constant “hunger pains” he figured that after using an anti-inflamatory fairly regularily for months that was the culprit. The duration of my recovery must have had something to do with it. And believe me I used the ice pack much more often. Of course the stress involved with being laid up for 3 months, two operations, etc. can have an effect on the development of ulcers too. Guess in my case all the cards were stacked against me.
Hubby played Ultimate for years (think football & soccer together with a disk, NOT A FRISBEE), and the day before a tournament they would start slamming ibuprofen. I think the dose was 8-12 the day before, 12 the days of, and 8-12 the day after. This was about reducing swelling and relieving pain. Lots of dope, I know, but most players swore by it.
Also, my brother was a US Army Ranger. Fucks up the body so badly, you automatically get disability when you get out! They just assume that your back & joints are shot. They refer to ibuprofen as “Ranger candy” because of the amount they take and the frequency. The Rangers will also encourage it’s use for ANYTHING- when my brother broke his leg on a jump, he was told, “Suck it up Ranger. Here, have some ibuprofen”.
Ugh, Needs2know, that sounds dreadful! Hope things are better now.
Thanks for the advice,everyone. I basically have been following PeterWiggens’ philosophy, and it’s worked fine for me so far. I try to use ibuprofen as seldom as I can, but there are times when I just want to take the ache out. I swear by stretching and a sensible warm-up as the best injury prevention (from painful experience).
EJsGirl, your story reminds me of a friend who was in the 82nd Airborn and whose chute didn’t open. Broke a lot of bones in his back and shattered his heel. Some things even ibuprofen won’t help.
Can’t help you with the OP much - though I tend to agree with Needs2Know - but if anyone wants to know the molecular mechanism of how pain relievers work, gimme a call.
BTW, keep an eye out for the new so-called “superaspirins” coming out soon. They do exactly the same thing as today’s pain relievers, but without causing stomach problems.