Icing arms

Question
Have you ever heard of icing a players shoulder prior to practice. What woould be the reasoning to this?

Answer
Jay,

I am not a doctor so I can not give you a 100% accurate medical answer on this. However, players tend to  believe that if your arm hurts you should ice it. That is fine after throwing. I have never seen anyone ice before throwing, unless they were doing it without instruction to do so.

The whole reason we stretch and do all our pregame activities is to loosen up our shoulder when it is tight. Icing your shoulder will tighten it and then can cause injury if you try and throw hard with a tight shoulder.

A doctor would be able to answer this better, but I can say in my years of high school, college and professional baseball I never saw a pitcher ice before throwing.

Thanks for the question.
Sean