R.I.C.E. vs M.E.A.T. Protocol for Parkour Injuries

tldr Don’t overcomplicate injury treatment acronyms, do what makes sense.

Acute injuries are inevitable no matter your experience and level of exercise is. From parkour slips, falls, to getting knocked down, these injuries can be mild to severe. The body usually responds to injuries with a predictable inflammatory response as the first step towards healing. Parkour athletes can see redness, heat, swelling, or pain. Often times, we give personal attention at home to treat these injuries – it’s quite normal! But are you following the best protocol?

Let’s start with an overview of inflammation.

When you’re injured, first comes the pain and then inflammation of the injured area. The simple definition of swelling is any abnormal enlargement of a body part. Inflamed swelling of your body is a normal reaction to a parkour injury but sometimes the body excessively responds. There are different types of swelling.

  • Edema – Swelling in the tissue outside of a joint
  • Effusion – Swelling inside a joint
  • Hemarthrosis – A condition where there is both blood and swelling within a joint. Hemarthorosis typically indicates a ligament injury.
    • Acute Hemarthrosis – Swelling that occurs within twenty-four hours of the injury
    • Chronic Hemarthrosis – Swelling that occurs over a long period; typically difficult to detect and is harmful if untreated

The body responds to these parkour injuries with a predictable inflammatory response as the first step toward healing. Redness and heat increase blood flow to the injured area and swelling becomes the result of the increased movement of fluid. The release of chemicals and the compression of nerves causes your body to signal pain. Pain and inflammation can keep parkour athletes from using the injured body part to protect the injured area from further injury. Prolonged pain and inflammation can lead to atrophy of the muscles surrounding the joint and a decreased ability to recruit and activate those muscles, decreasing healthy, athletic movement. When acute injuries aren’t treated appropriately, swelling can become chronic or long-term. 

RICE Protocol

The RICE Protocol is centered around preventing inflammation. If you’ve hurt your ankle or had another type of sprain or strain from parkour, chances are you were recommended rest, ice, compression, and elevation as your first treatment. It’s a simple self-care method that helps reduce inflammation, ease some of your pain, and speed up healing. The RICE protocol can treat minor injuries at home.

  • Rest – Keep the injured area from any movement to prevent more blood flow
  • Ice – Apply cold therapy to decrease the swelling, inflammation, and pain
  • Compression – Apply compression to the injured area to decrease hemorrhaging and to reduce further swelling
  • Elevation – Elevate the injured area while lowering the pressure in the blood vessels to minimize bleeding

In the past, the mainstream belief for treating an injury has led people to believe that the best recovery is the RICE Protocol, an acronym for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. While these steps have been the most popular and widespread for decades, it’s not necessarily the best way to optimize healing.

Recent reports now suggest that ice and complete rest might delay recovery. Complete rest may cause muscles around the surrounding injury may tighten and increase the potential for further injury when the activity is resumed. Ice may be useful for mitigating pain in the short window immediately after the injury but it can slow the healing process over time. Localized cooling with ice can be helpful as a short-term, non-pharmaceutical pain relief. Several regiments have been published, for example, rotations of 20-40 minutes on and off every 2-4 hours. Essentially, the role of ice is for short-term pain relief from the parkour injury, not long term suppression of inflammation.

While the RICE Protocol may assist in minimizing inflammation and pain from a parkour injury, it’s important to recognize the limitations. The MEAT Protocol can facilitate a quicker and more comprehensive recovery.

MEAT Protocol

The MEAT Protocol starts with gentle movement until you’re back to a regular, exercise routine.

  • Movement – Maintain a pain-free range of motion of the injured area. The more you move safely, the quicker you will heal.
  • Exercise – As your pain reduces, increase the duration and intensity of exercise with a progressive routine to increase strength.
  • Analgesia – Consult with your physician to determine the most appropriate pain-relieving medication. It may refer to traditional pain relievers – short-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen. Natural alternatives like ginger, turmeric, and magnesium can provide relief while minimizing the potential side effects of NSAIDs.
  • Treatment – Complete recovery of parkour injury takes time and attention. Appropriate treatment methods depend on the severity of your injury. Methods may include:
    • Physical therapy
    • Exercise
    • Massage
    • Taping
    • Soft tissue mobilization
    • Neuromuscular re-education techniques
    • Contrast hydrotherapy

At the end of the day, every parkour injury is different from one another. There is no best protocol – your approach to every parkour injury should be individualized. While treatment protocols for injuries are an evolving area in medicine and the RICE Protocol is slowly being phased out and the science continues to remain unsettled. But what has evolved over the years is that some inflammation is potentially beneficial, and aggressively treating it may slow or negatively impact healing. Some treatments have started to shift towards the MEAT Protocol while others call for either PRICE (protection, rest, ice, compression, elevation) or PEACE&LOVE (protection, elevation, avoid-anti-inflammatories, compressions, education, load, optimism, vascularization, exercise). The common theme here is to protect the injury and avoid aggressive suppression of inflammation.