Minimal effect of water immersion on markers of inflammation and muscle damage after intensive exercise

• Water immersion methods, such as cold water immersion and contrast water therapy are popular recovery interventions after athletic training and competition. Nevertheless, post-exercise cold water immersion may actually inhibit hypertrophic signalling pathways and muscle adaptation to training (1). It is has been commonly assumed that the mechanism of impaired training adaptation is mediated by blunted inflammatory responses to muscle-damaging exercise, although this assumption has been questioned by recent data (2). A weakness of previous studies is omission of active recovery in water immersion interventions, which would arguably be utilised in addition to water immersion by athletic populations. The aim of this study was to compare the influence of three water immersion methods, performed after active recovery, on inflammatory responses to muscle-damaging exercise. Nine male participants (age 20-35 y) performed an intensive exercise protocol, consisting of maximal jumps and sprinting, on four occasions. After each trial, participants completed one of four recovery protocols in a randomised, crossover design (ACT, active recovery only, 10 min cycling; heart rate 120-140 b/min; CWI, active recovery followed by 10 min cold water immersion, 10°C; TWI, active recovery followed by 10 min temperate water immersion, 24°C and CWT, active recovery followed by contrast water therapy, 10 min alternating 10°C and 38°C in 1 min cycles). The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the local ethical review board. Venous blood samples were collected pre-exercise and 5 min, 60 min, 24 h, 48 h and 96 h post-exercise, then analysed for myocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) and creatine kinase (CK) using ELISA and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) using a chemiluminescence assay. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare biomarker concentrations between groups over time. There were no differences in biomarker concentrations during exercise and recovery between groups across the six time points, however main effects of time were present for all three markers (MCP-1: F(2.32, 18.56) = 23.1, p < 0.0001; CK: F(2.059, 16.47) = 8.74, p = 0.002; hs-CRP: F(1.07, 8.57 = 13.8, p = 0.005). Tukey’s post-hoc analysis of simple time effects revealed increases in MCP-1 at post-5 min versus pre in all groups except CWT. In TWI and CWI, MCP-1 was still elevated above pre at 60 min post-exercise. hs-CRP peaked at 24 h post-exercise in all groups. CK was elevated at post-60 versus pre in all groups and at post-24 except in CWT. Our findings suggest that use of cold or thermoneutral water immersion in combination with active recovery may slightly prolong the immediate post-exercise elevation in MCP-1 but have minimal overall effect on markers of inflammation and muscle damage.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Idrottsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Sport and Fitness Sciences (hsv//eng)

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