Local Heat Therapy to Accelerate Recovery After Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage

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2024-11-23 20:00:04

Corresponding author: Bruno T. Roseguini, Ph.D., Department of Health and Kinesiology, Purdue University, 800 W. Stadium Avenue, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, brosegui@purdue.edu , Phone: 765-496-2612; Fax: 765-496-1239

The prolonged impairment in muscle strength, power and fatigue resistance following eccentric exercise has been ascribed to a plethora of mechanisms, including delayed muscle refueling and microvascular and mitochondrial dysfunction. This review will explore the hypothesis that local heat therapy (HT) hastens functional recovery following strenuous eccentric exercise by facilitating glycogen resynthesis, reversing vascular derangements, augmenting mitochondrial function and stimulating muscle protein synthesis.

Unaccustomed exercise as well as major changes in the frequency, intensity and volume of training may result in muscle damage and consequently in a myriad of symptoms, including muscle soreness and a prolonged loss of muscle function (1). These manifestations are particularly evident following activities involving lengthening (eccentric) contractions. For example, isolated eccentric exercise leads to histological alterations of muscle fibers and the surrounding extracellular matrix, decreased muscle strength, increased muscle swelling, and increased stiffness (2). Similar effects may be elicited by prolonged whole-body exercise with an eccentric contraction component or bias such as downhill running or downward-stepping exercise (3). Although temporary, these symptoms might result in poor adherence to exercise regimens and ultimately impair competitive performance and the adaptations to training.

The marked and prolonged reductions in maximal strength and power are thought to be the most reliable indirect markers of exercise-induced muscle damage (4). A single bout of repeated maximal eccentric exercise of the knee extensors has been shown to promote a 40–50% reduction in maximal strength from baseline levels that persists for several days or even weeks (5, 6). Competitive team-sports events such as basketball (7) and soccer (8), which entail sudden changes in direction and speed, also elicit temporary (24–48 h) reductions in muscle strength. Exercise-induced muscle damage reduces performance in endurance time trials and time-to-exhaustion tests (9). This marked and prolonged decline in muscle function, along with other debilitating symptoms such as local pain, prompted the widespread use of a number of recovery strategies after intense exercise, such as cold water immersion, compression garments, foam rolling, massage and others. Unfortunately, the available evidence reveals that the vast majority of these methods fail to mitigate the detrimental consequences of intense exercise on muscle strength, power and work capacity (10–13).

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