Non-local muscle fatigue effects on muscle strength, power, and endurance in healthy individuals: A systematic review and meta- analysis
One article on PainSci cites Behm 2020: Post-Exercise, Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness
PainSci notes on Behm 2020:
This is a pre-print review, not yet peer-reviewed. That said, it presents some compelling evidence of absence: “Overall, the findings do not support the existence of a general non-local muscle fatigue effect.” The authors do make a concession, though: a non-local fatigue effect might crop up specifically when measuring endurance. If so, that certainly counts as one type of non-local muscle fatigue. So it’s fair to say that the question remains open, even if NLFM isn’t quite the “known unknown” that I used to think it was.
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
Objective: To examine whether non-local muscle fatigue occurs following performance of a fatiguing bout of exercise of a different muscle(s). Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Search and Inclusion: A systematic literature search using a Boolean search strategy was conducted with PubMed, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar in April 2020 and was supplemented with additional ‘snowballing’ searches up to September 2020. To be included in our analysis, studies had to include at least one intentional performance measure (i.e., strength, endurance, or power), which if reduced could be considered evidence of muscle fatigue, and also had to include the implementation of a fatiguing protocol to a location (i.e., limb or limbs) that differed to those for which performance was measured. We excluded studies that measured only mechanistic variables such as electromyographic, or spinal/supraspinal excitability. After search and screening, 52 studies were eligible for inclusion including 57 groups of participants (median sample = 11) and a total of 303 participants. Results: The main multilevel meta-analysis model including all effects sizes (278 across 50 clusters [median = 4, range = 1 to 18 effects per cluster) revealed a trivial point estimate with high precision for the interval estimate (-0.02 [95%CIs = -0.14 to 0.09]), yet with substantial heterogeneity (Q(277) = 642.3, p < 0.01), I2 = 67.4%). Subgroup and meta-regression analyses showed that NLMF effects were not moderated by study design (between vs. within-participant), homologous vs. heterologous effects, upper or lower body effects, participant training status, sex, age, the time of post-fatigue protocol measurement, or the severity of the fatigue protocol. However, there did appear to be an effect of type of outcome measure where both strength (0.11 [95%CIs = 0.01 to 0.21]) and power outcomes had trivial effects (-0.01 [95%CIs = -0.24 to 0.22]), whereas endurance outcomes showed moderate albeit imprecise effects (-0.54 [95%CIs = -0.95 to -0.14]). Conclusions: Overall, the findings do not support the existence of a general NLMF effect; however, when examining specific types of performance outcomes there may be an effect specifically upon endurance-based outcomes (i.e., time to task failure). However, there are relatively fewer studies that have examined endurance effects or mechanisms explaining this possible effect, in addition to fewer studies including women or younger and older participants, and considering causal effects of prior training history through the use of longitudinal intervention study designs. Thus, it seems pertinent that future research on NLMF effects should be redirected towards these still relatively unexplored areas.
related content
- “Non-local muscle fatigue: effects and possible mechanisms,” Israel Halperin, Dale W Chapman, and David G Behm, European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2015.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Relationships Between Sleep Quality and Pain-Related Factors for People with Chronic Low Back Pain: Tests of Reciprocal and Time of Day Effects. Gerhart 2017 Ann Behav Med.
- Modulation in the elastic properties of gastrocnemius muscle heads in individuals with plantar fasciitis and its relationship with pain. Zhou 2020 Sci Rep.
- Association Between Plantar Fasciitis and Isolated Gastrocnemius Tightness. Nakale 2018 Foot Ankle Int.
- No Added Benefit of Combining Dry Needling With Guideline-Based Physical Therapy When Managing Chronic Neck Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Stieven 2020 J Orthop Sports Phys Ther.
- Effectiveness of customised foot orthoses for Achilles tendinopathy: a randomised controlled trial. Munteanu 2015 Br J Sports Med.