Massage enhances recovery following exercise‐induced muscle damage in older adults

Abstract

To examine efficacy of cold water immersion (CWI) and massage as recovery techniques on joint position sense, balance, and fear of falling following exercise‐induced muscle damage in older adults. Seventy‐eight older men and women performed a single bout of strength training on the calf muscles (3 exercises with 4 sets of 10 reps with 75% of 1RM) to induce muscle damage. After the damaging exercise, participants received either a 15‐minute massage on calf muscles, or a CWI of the lower limb in cold water (15 ± 1°C) for 15 minute, or passive rest. Interventions were applied immediately after the exercise protocol and at 24, 48, and 72 hours post‐exercise. Muscle pain, calf muscle strength, joint position sense, dynamic balance, postural sway, and fear of falling were measured at each time point. Repeated application of massage after EIMD relieved muscle pain, attenuated the loss of muscle strength and joint position senses, reduce balance impairments, and fear of falling in older adults (P ≤ .05). However, repeated applications of CWI, despite relieving muscle pain (P ≤ .05), did not attenuate the loss of muscle strength, joint position senses, balance impairments, and fear of falling. CWI had only some modest effects on muscle pain, but massage attenuated EIMD symptoms and the related impairments in muscle strength, joint position sense, balance, and postural sway in untrained older individuals. Therefore, older exercisers who plan to participate in strength training can benefit from massage for recovery from muscle damage indices and balance to decrease falling risk during the days following strength training.

Recovery from Resistance Exercise in Older Adults: A Systematic Scoping Review

“…Studies that assessed function of the elbow flexors tended to report larger decreases in strength than those that assessed function of the lower limbs. For example, decreases in elbow flexor MVC after exercise ranged from 42 to 49% [47,51], whilst decreases in plantar flexor and knee extensor strength ranged from 9 to 36% [54,55]. Of the four studies that measured elbow flexor strength [45][46][47]51], three were conducted by the same research group using the same exercise protocol [45][46][47].…”

A systematic review of chiropractic care for fall prevention: rationale, state of the evidence, and recommendations for future research

“…Components of multimodal chiropractic care such as soft tissue massage, prescriptive exercise, and kinesiology taping have shown mixed effectiveness in enhancing proprioception. Older adults who received massage following exercise saw benefit in measures of joint position sense [ 115 ] and changes in plantar sensation have been observed following the use of plantar massage [ 116 ]. The use of prescriptive exercise for the direct purpose of improving proprioceptive functioning is supported by one study showing improvement with lumbopelvic motor control exercise [ 117 ] but countered by another showing no changes following tactile acuity training [ 118 ].…”

The Use of Post-Exercise Cooling as a Recovery Strategy: Unraveling the Controversies

“…By contrast, CWI following eccentric contractions did not affect muscle soreness or strength in humans . More recently, Naderi et al showed that CWI did not attenuate a loss in muscle strength following a single bout of strength training (Naderi et al, 2021), whereas Kodejška et al (2018) demonstrated that CWI increased the force time integral in handgrip performance compared with passive recovery in rock climbers. Differences in CWI study outcomes could be associated with different modes of exercise, methods or timing of applying CWI and approaches to assessing muscle damage.…”