Cognitive Appraisals of the Meaning of Delayed-Onset Muscle Pain

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Pain is associated with reduced exercise adherence and the meaning of pain has been theorized to influence pain response. PURPOSE:This investigation examined participants' cognitive appraisals of the harmful or beneficial nature of delay ed-onset muscle pain and the relationships among these appraisals, delay ed-onset muscle pain ratings, and self-reported exercise behavior. METHODS:Participants(N = 113, 58.4% women) described their cognitive appraisals of delayed-onset muscle pain, their most recent delay ed-onset muscle pain experience, and their self-reported leisure exercise behavior. In addition, a subset of the participants (n = 63, 71.4% women) completed 3 sets of 10 eccentric repetitions with their non-dominant arms to induce delayed-onset muscle pain, which was measured by pain intensity and pain unpleasantness ratings at 48 hrs post-exercise. RESULTS: Few participants viewed delayed-onset muscle pain as generally representing harmful muscle damage (2.7%) so analyses were restricted to the most common appraisals of the delayed-onset muscle pain as representing beneficial muscle adaptation (64.6%) and as representing a combination of both harmful damage and beneficial adaptation (28.3%). These cognitive appraisals of delayed-onset muscle pain were not related to total self-reported leisure exercise, but the appraisals significantly explained 6.8% of recalled muscle pain intensity, F(1,84) = 6.09, p < .05, and 4.4% of recalled muscle pain unpleasantness from the participants' most recent delayed-onset muscle pain experience, F(1,84) = 3.85, p = .05. More specifically, viewing the delayed-onset muscle pain as representing both harmful damage and beneficial adaptation was related to higher pain ratings than viewing the pain as representing only beneficial adaptation. However, cognitive appraisals were not related to the induced muscle pain intensity or pain unpleasantness at 48-hrs post-exercise. CONCLUSIONS:These healthy participants largely viewed delayed-onset muscle pain as representing beneficial muscle adaptation and their cognitive appraisals were not related to self-reported leisure time exercise behavior. The relationships between cognitive appraisals and recalled or actual delayed-onset muscle pain ratings were divergent, which may have been due to collecting appraisals of delayed-onset pain in an abstract sense instead of collecting specific appraisals of the induced delayed-onset muscle pain. Future studies comparing the meaning and effects of personally-experienced delayed-onset muscle pain within healthy and clinical samples are warranted.