Everyone knows sore muscles. It is almost part of doing sports and is a sometimes unpopular, sometimes promising side effect of a strenuous training session. But how exactly can sore muscles be alleviated, prevented or even avoided?
This question was addressed by researchers Herbert RD, de Noronha M and Kamper SJ. who examined muscle soreness treatments in the form of stretching exercises. The 2011 study looked at whether, and if so, how exactly stretching after exercise affects the intensity and occurrence of muscle soreness. They wanted to find out how differently muscle soreness manifested itself in subjects who stretched before exercise and those who did not.
The method of investigation was based on an analysis of a total of 10 studies from various databases, reference lists, registers and articles from various years with different research backgrounds. All types of studies, whether randomized or quasi-randomized, which dealt with stretching exercises before or after exercise were examined and analyzed by the researchers. They looked at 3 studies that observed stretching before exercise and 7 studies that observed stretching after exercise. The important thing was to find evidence that stretching before or after exercise actually helped relieve muscle soreness. The researchers also paid attention to the fact that the studies recorded the intensity of the muscle soreness and thus the effect of the stretching exercises.
To analyze this, the researchers converted the estimates of the effects of stretching exercises into a point scale and analyzed the results to summarize them into effects. It turned out that stretching before the exercise session reduced muscle soreness the day after exercise by an average of 0.5 points on a 100-point scale. Stretching after exercise, on the other hand, reduced muscle soreness the day after exercise by an average of 1.0 points on a 100-point scale. Also, stretching exercises between half a day and three days after exercise showed similar results.
The conclusion of the study was that stretching exercises did not improve or delay the onset of muscle soreness in young and healthy people.
Citation
- Herbert RD, de Noronha M. Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle soreness after exercise. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Oct 17;(4):CD004577. Doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004577.pub2. Update in: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011;(7):CD004577. PMID: 17943822.