Effects of Electrotherapy And Icing on Damaged Muscle During Repeated Sets Exercise

Abstract

PURPOSE: This study investigated which modality would be the best way to improve the recovery of muscle function and immediately performance between two different sets of repeated bouts eccentric exercise. METHODS: Thirty-six non-weight-trained females (29.32 ± 3.58 yrs, 175.75 ± 3.76 cm, 77.00 ± 12.02 kg) participated in this study. All subjects performed the first set of 30 eccentric actions (ECC1) with non-dominate elbow flexors using the dumbbell that was set at 80% of the pre-ECC1 maximal voluntary isometric contraction force (MVC) level, and then subjects were randomly placed into cryotherapy (CTG; n = 12), electrical therapy (ETG; n = 12) or control (CON; n = 12) groups based on their MVC response to ECC1. Immediately after ECC1, cryotherapy and electrical theraphy groups were accepted cold pack and trans cutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) treatments, respectively, for an hours. Including CON, all subjects were repeated the same bout of 30 eccentric exercise (ECC2) after treatments. MVC were assessed before, immediately after both ECC1 and ECC2, and 2, 4, 7, and 10 days (D2, D4, D7, D10) after ECC1 for all groups. Serum creatine kinase muscle isoform (CK-MM) was collected before, and D2, D4, D7, and D1 0 for all groups. RESULTS: There was a significant further decrease (p <0.01) in MVC immediately after treatment when compared to pre-test for the ETG, but not in CTG and CON. The MVC for ETG were significant decrease than CTG (p <0.05) on day D4, D7, D10, were significant decrease than CON (p <0.05) on D7, D10. There were significant increase in CK-MM on D4, D7 (p <0.05) when compared to pre-test for the ETG, was increase on D4 (p <0.05) for CON, but no significant different between each day for CTG. The CK-MM for ETG were significant increase than CTG and CON on D2, D4, D7 and D10 (p <0.05), and no significant different between CTG and CON on any day. CONCLUSION: The long-term recovery outcomes showed cryotherapy is the most beneficial for muscle damage management between repeated sets, and the short-term outcomes showed cryotherapy and resting are beneficial to the muscle performance, such as muscle strength and active range of motion. Electrical therapy is disadventiaged to manage muscle damage between repeated sets exercise.