Cryotherapy and roller massage therapy is currently utilized as means of recovery for people who experience delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Athletes believe that ice and massage speed recovery. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of combining the two methods on recovery from DOMS in regards to range of motion, girth, and torque. A custom, protype roller was designed to test the hypothesis.
Method:
Twenty eight males between ages 18-25 volunteered to participate in the study. All subjects were recreationally active. Participants met for five consecutive days: Day 1 – ROM, girth, torque of bicep measured. DOMS induced (Biodex System 4). Treatment applied. Days 2-5 – ROM, girth, torque measured and treatment applied. Treatment groups included each of the following applied directly to the affected muscle for 10 minutes: Control group (no treatment); Cryo group (bag of ice); Massage group (Tiger Tail®); Combo group (polar roller; custom made cold roller). Measurements were taken before participants performed a 5 minute general warm up on a stationary bike (70-90 rpm) and then performed 10-repition passive warm up of the bicep before torque was measured. A repeated measures MANOVA was used with significance set a p≤0.05. Data were analyzed using PASW (v. 21).
Analysis/Results:
There was a significant interaction effect between time, measure, and group (Lamba (48, 27.56) = 1.802, p = 0.05. Bonferonni post hoc tests revealed a significant difference between torque produced after treatment with the polar roller and the regular roller (p =0 .01). Upon further analysis, it was discovered that although randomly assigned to treatment groups, the roller and polar group had significantly different initial torque measurements (p = 0.001). Values for torque showed significant time effects (p ≤ 0.05) at each time progression except 72 hours post exercise regardless of treatment. As time progressed, there was greater difference between torque produced after treatment with the polar roller and the regular roller vs. the other two treatments. The torque achieved after the polar roller treatment approached significance over the values achieved on the ice treatment (p = 0.08) at every time point except 72 hours post.
Conclusions:
The combination of cryotherapy and roller massage therapy has potential to expedite the recovery process on DOMS in regards to torque production. Athletes reported enjoying the massage with the polar roller over the use of a traditional ice massage. Follow-up studies are being conducted.