Tag: muscle strength

Categories : ExerciseTags :

Compression Garments Offer No Exercise Recovery Benefit

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Man and woman about to sprint
Source: Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels

A meta-analysis of studies on the ability of compression garments, elastic clothing on the limbs or hips, to enhance muscle recovery after exercise found that they provide no recovery benefit. Rather, they should be used to help reduce injury, the reviewers suggest.

Use of compression garments has gained popularity over the last few decades because they are thought to enhance muscle recovery following exercise.

An international research team, led by assistant professor János Négyesi, conducted a review using a generic inverse variance model, which adjusts the weight of individual studies according to sample size, to more accurately assess the effects of compression garments than previous meta-analyses.

Contrary to results found in individual research, the meta-analytical evidence suggests that wearing a compression garment during or after training does not facilitate muscle recovery.

“Even data from our previous study supported the idea that such garments have the potential to reduce strength loss after a strenuous workout,” said Dr Négyesi. “However, when we synthesized the data of all relevant studies, we found no effect of compression garments on strength recovery – even when factoring in exercise type and when and where the compression garment is applied.”

The authors think this is a perfect example of contradictory outcomes from individual studies and meta-analytical evidence. Therefore, scientists should be careful when drawing direct conclusions from the results of their studies. Rather, meta-analyses using the most appropriate models can provide more precise and reliable results.

Overall, practitioners, athletes, coaches, and therapists should reconsider compression garments as a means of reducing the harmful effects of physical exercise on muscle strength and seek alternative methods.

The review appears in Sports Medicine.

Source: Tohoku University

Categories : AgeingTags :

Timely Interventions Could Counteract Sarcopenia

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Photo by Bennett Tobias on Unsplash

A new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden suggests that the early stages of sarcopenia, where muscles weaken with age faster than expected, could be counteracted with timely interventions designed to preserve physical and cognitive function and manage chronic conditions. The study’s findings are published in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.

Muscle mass and function is lost with ageing. When this decline is more extensive or rapid than expected, it is categorised as sarcopenia, a common condition in the elderly that often lowers quality of life and increases fall and fracture risks.

Researchers examined how different factors such as sex, age, educational level, living arrangement, lifestyle and chronic conditions affected the development of sarcopenia in people aged 60 and above across a 12-year period.

When the study began, almost 10% of the nearly 3200 participants had sarcopenia, 27% had probable sarcopenia and just over 63% no sarcopenia. Measurements such as grip strength, walking speed, speed of rising from a chair five times and calf circumference were used to assess muscle strength and mass and physical performance.

“Perhaps the most interesting result was that after five years, a roughly equal proportion (just over 10 percent) of the individuals with probable sarcopenia had either improved or deteriorated. This suggests that sarcopenia is a dynamic condition that is modifiable especially in the initial stages, which is a hopeful message,” said corresponding author Caterina Trevisan, affiliated researcher at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet.

Physical activity and higher results on cognitive tests improved odds of improvement and lowered mortality risk, while a higher number of chronic conditions, male sex and older age had the opposite correlation. For individuals initially diagnosed with severe sarcopenia, there was little chance of improvement, and many of them (almost 71%) died during the follow-up period.

“Our results support the need of early interventions to preserve physical and cognitive functions and manage chronic conditions in older individuals,” says the study’s last author Anna-Karin Welmer, senior lecturer at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet. “With these tools, we could probably counteract muscle deterioration and the impairment in quality of life this entails. We now need intervention studies to find ways to use these tools to counteract sarcopenia.”

Source: Karolinska Institutet

Categories : Diet and NutritionTags :

Extra Vitamin D Does not Boost Muscles

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Photo by Michele Blackwell on Unsplash

Vitamin D supplementation does not have beneficial effects on muscle function, strength, or mass, according to a new meta-analysis, and may even have detrimental effects on muscle strength in people with normal levels of the vitamin.

Vitamin D deficiency, causes a generalised decrease in bone mineral density, resulting in osteopenia and osteoporosis. In young children who have little mineral in their skeleton, this defect results in a variety of skeletal deformities classically known as rickets. It is also believed to cause muscle weakness; affected children have difficulty in standing and walking, whereas the elderly have increasing sway and more frequent falls,thereby increasing their risk of fracture.

The analysis, which is published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, included 54 trials involving 8747 individuals. Overall, no benefits of vitamin D over placebo were observed for improving muscle health. On the contrary, vitamin D appeared to have detrimental effects in terms of increased time spent performing what’s called the Timed Up and Go test, a decrease in maximum strength at knee flexion, and a tendency towards a reduced score of the Short Physical Performance Battery.

“Care should be taken recommending vitamin D supplementation to improve muscle strength and function in people with normal or only slightly impaired vitamin D status,” said lead author Lise Sofie Bislev, MD, PhD, of Aarhus University Hospital, in Denmark. “We need to study further whether it may benefit muscles in those with severe vitamin D deficiency, however.”

Source: Wiley