[Dead Corpse]

Heat can open up teh arteries allowing more blood flow. Conventional wisdom says that if you have swelling already present in the area, more blood lfow is not a good thing. Ice it to minimize the swelling.

Muscle strain is pretty much exactly that. You've strained the muscle past its limits and probably tore a sizable amount of the muscle fibers. Weight lifters do this, under controlled circumstances, to try and get the muscle to re-grow bigger than it was before.

Heat should only be used when you have cramping or general soreness from strenuous activity. Everything else, sprains to tears, should be iced. See a doctor if you deem it bad enough, or if the pain persists.

[tacticalogic]

I went to the doctor to start with, and he's the one who told me to use the heating pad. It made it feel better while it was on there, but as soon as I took it off it and tried to move around, it would sieze up again. The ice seemed to make it tighten up a little more initially, but after awhile it would start to relax. After about 45 minutes under the icepack, I could get up and move around for at least a couple of hours before it started to tighten up again.