The practice of using a cooling pack or patch to reduce pain and aid recovery is also known as cryotherapy. Physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals recommend cooling therapy as part of the RICE protocol in the event of trauma or injury to a muscle. Cooling with ice or with a pack or patch is most effective when used soon after the onset of pain or injury.

RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation:

• Rest - the muscle or joint should be rested to prevent further strain or injury.
• Ice - the muscle should be cooled as quickly as possible with cold therapy applied for at least 20 minutes at a time. Some people find it difficult to tolerate 20 minutes of cooling, so work up to this if you need to.
• Compression - there are two ways to use compression after an injury. It's a good idea to use a tight towel or some cling film while you are cooling the area. This provides both cooling therapy and early compression to reduce swelling. Once you have finished your period of cooling then an elastic compression bandage should be applied over the area. This helps to prevent additional swelling and bleeding into the muscle tissue.
• Elevation - the affected muscle should be raised above the level of your heart to minimise swelling. In practice, this means sitting with your injured leg up on a chair or the sofa (or your arm propped up on pillows) for as much of the day as you can manage.

It's always difficult to generalize about when an injured sportsperson should seek further input. My message is always "if in doubt, then seek a professional opinion" but as a helpful aid I recommend the following:

Try to rate your pain on a scale of one to 10 - where zero is no pain at all and ten is pain that is overwhelming and disabling.

If you rate your pain as less than three then you can train as normal providing the pain starts to go away within a week. But use your common sense and reassess things every day or two. If the pain is getting worse then stop, rest and review your training program carefully.

If your pain is rated between four and six then you need to reduce your training frequency and your training intensity until things start to settle. Depending on the part of the body you have injured you might need to take a break from your sport for up to a week. Again - use your common sense, keep things under review and get advice about technique or training levels from a coach or fitness professional.

Pain above six on the scale for more than a day or so really does mean that you need some rest urgently and anything above seven needs reviewed by a physiotherapist or a sports medicine doctor.

Another thing to take in to consideration is the type of pain you are experiencing. A stitch can be ignored as best as you can; for a muscle pull or ache, work gently through it and hopefully it should improve as you continue to workout. For knee pain, work through it providing it doesn't get any worse; for a ligament, tendon or bone pain, be very careful indeed.

If you are seeing a sports injury specialist or a doctor, they will be able to advise you best on how long to rest for. Really, it depends on the type of injury. A couple of days will be long of enough for some injuries, but more serious injuries will require a longer rest period. But learn to listen to your body and if you feel fit to train within yourself, then give it a go and see how you get on. The way to stay safe is to try some gentle exercise then review your situation. Pace it up and then review... up again and then review. Review, review, review is the key habit for all athletes to develop.

In terms of fitness, there are few things worse that having to suspend your training schedule to deal with an injury. It can be frustrating and just plain boring. You could sit at home and sulk, or you could utilise your down time find another sport. Joint injury? Try swimming lengths of your local pool as fast as you can to work out without putting strain on your joints. Shin splints? Try cycling to keep your cardiovascular fitness up.

It's important to recognise the difference between pain and discomfort. What many people describe as pain is actually more accurately described as severe discomfort. Acute pain is a nerve response to damage that is occurring. It is a natural mechanism designed to stop you in your tracks, to prevent you from causing further damage. Discomfort is when you overreach, stretch yourself, or push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Pain takes your breath away. If you are in pain you will not be able to continue the same action at the same level of effort regardless of what that activity is. If you can, you are not in pain, you are just experiencing discomfort, whether mild or severe. Depending on the biological process causing that discomfort, this could in time lead to pain - it's then that you should stop the action, investigate and treat the cause. Discomfort in a controlled way helps us to improve and keep going, get faster, run further, train harder. Without being in some form of discomfort we would never improve, but pain is a sign that something is going wrong. If you are really in pain, this should not be ignored.