Abstract
Exercise-induced muscular damage (EIMD) is a well-known phenomenon in exercise medicine that is closely related to the type and intensity of training, with especially eccentric training content providing various physiological irritations, including mechanical as well as metabolic. Besides the increase in markers of muscular damage, such as creatine kinase (CK) and myoglobin (Mb), several physiological shifts trigger a kind of stepwise repair chain reactions lasting over a time course from several hours to days. Subsequent inflammatory processes are closely related to muscular damage with decisive influence on physiological repair mechanisms, as indicated by an increased invasion of immune cells and typical patterns of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Previously, whole-body electromyostimulation (WB-EMS) showed significant, partly extreme distractions in markers of muscular damage lasting over several days. Because of the large area of stimulated muscle mass and a relatively high proportion of eccentric movements, initially too intense WB-EMS is predisposed to produce serious changes on several physiological levels due to its unfamiliar muscular strain. Therefore, it is the aim of this short review to focus on the possible immunological side effects of this aspiring training technology. As the number of original investigations in this field is rather small, we will include data from other studies about the relation of exercise-induced muscle damage and immune regulation.
Highlights
Whole-body electromyostimulation (WB-electrical muscular stimulation (EMS)) has shown to be an effective tool in order to improve muscle strength outcome measurements in deconditioned subjects (Kemmler et al, 2016b, 2017)
In order to adequately get to the bottom of these questions, we use articles published on Pubmed with relevance to keywords, muscle damage, eccentric, training, exercise, whole-body, electromyostimulation, whole-body electromyostimulation (WB-EMS), cytokine, immunology
Since eccentric workouts are known for higher muscle damage, the combination with very intense additional stimulation can especially harm novices more severely
Summary
Whole-body electromyostimulation (WB-EMS) has shown to be an effective tool in order to improve muscle strength outcome measurements in deconditioned subjects (Kemmler et al, 2016b, 2017). WB-EMS, EIMD, and Immune System usual conditions of exercise-induced muscle damage: loss of muscle strength and power, delayed onset of muscle soreness, swelling, reduced range of motion and systemic increases of myocellular enzymes and proteins, or a combination of these (Hyldahl and Hubal, 2014) These symptoms last for at least up to 72 h, depending on the volume of muscledamaging exercise and the extent of disruption of subcellular structures (Fatouros and Jamurtas, 2016). The recovering process is dependent on a fine tenement and communication of different cell types such as inflammatory cells (e.g., neutrophils, macrophages); satellite cells (muscle stem cells); vascular cells (e.g., pericytes); and stromal cells (e.g., fibroblasts) (Peake et al, 2017) The aim of this mini review is (1) to characterize and summarize the basics and key elements of (WB-)EMS, (2) to explore exercise-induced muscle damage and its impact on parameters of the immune system (3) in order to derive conclusions for a reasonable WB-EMS application to avoid negative physiological effects with a special view on immunological effects. In order to adequately get to the bottom of these questions, we use articles published on Pubmed with relevance to keywords, muscle damage, eccentric, training, exercise, whole-body, electromyostimulation, WB-EMS, cytokine, immunology
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