Surprising New Way to Soothe Sore Muscles

If your muscles are sore from too much exercise, you now have a new route to relief. A recently published study from Denmark concluded that light exercise may work slightly better than massage to ease the discomfort of activity-induced soreness. The research team performed a comparison test with 20 women whose trapezius muscles were sore two days after a shoulder workout on a gym machine – the exercise involved shrugging the shoulders against resistance. The women ranked the resulting muscle soreness as (on average) a “five” on a 10-point scale, and reported that prior to exercising their baseline aches would have been ranked as less than one on the scale. The comparison involved a 10- minute massage on one shoulder and 10 minutes of the same shrugs against a light resistance band on the other shoulder. The women reported virtually no difference between the positive effects of the massage and the light shoulder shrugs – they ranked the reduction in pain at 0.8 after the exercise compared to 0.7 after massage. The study was published online April 9, 2013, by the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

My take? This is valuable information for those who over-do their workouts. In addition to light exercise and massage, gentle stretching after a workout may be helpful and, surprisingly, drinking tart cherry juice may make a difference. A study from the University of Vermont published in 2006 showed that cherry juice reduced the symptoms of exercise-induced muscle strain and that the loss of strength averaged over four days was only four percent in those who drank cherry juice, compared to 22 percent in those who received a placebo. The anthocyanin pigments that give tart cherries their color are likely responsible for their anti-inflammatory, analgesic effects.

Sources:
Lars L. Andersen et al, “Acute effects of massage or active exercise in relieving muscle soreness: Randomized controlled trial.” Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research: April 9, 2013 doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3182908610

Declan Connolly et al, “Efficacy of a tart cherry juice blend in preventing the symptoms of muscle damage.” British Journal of Sports Medicine, August 2006

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