Effects of a plank-based strength training programme on muscle activation in patients with long COVID: a case series, 2024, Navarro-Lopez et al

[rvallee]

Effects of a plank-based strength training programme on muscle activation in patients with long COVID: a case series
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39364804/


Abstract

Background: This study aimed to analyse the effects of a plank-based strength training programme on muscle activation in patients with long COVID.

Subjects and methods: Case series study that included patients with long COVID who participated in a 12-week trunk and pelvic muscle strength training programme. Clinical variables and the modified fatigue impact scale (MFIS) were used to assess fatigue levels. Percentage of muscle activation during a core muscle plank was measured via surface electromyography. Pre- and post-intervention results were compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and evaluated with Cohen's D effect size (ES).

Results: Twenty-one subjects participated in the study; 81% female, mean age 47.5 years (range: 28-55 years), and median duration of symptoms 21 months (range: 5-24 months); 90.5% of the participants experienced fatigue (MFIS score = 38). Muscle activation during plank exercises improved across all muscles after the intervention, with significant increases in the left (p = 0.011, medium ES) and right external oblique (p =0.039, small ES) muscles and the right latissimus dorsi muscle (p = 0.039, small ES). Additionally, significant reductions in fatigue were observed in the total MFIS score (p = 0.004, medium ES) and in the physical (p < 0.001, large ES) and psychosocial subscales (p = 0.033, small ES).

Conclusions: Results suggest that a plank-based strength training programme may be effective in enhancing trunk and pelvic muscle activation in individuals with long COVID.

 

[rvallee]

Not especially notable, and details are paywalled anyway. Not even a poorly randomized trial with weak methodology, they published this as a case series.

What's most notable is that this paper was published just last month, and already a running magazine has published what is basically an ad for it. Probably just some freelancer who saw this as an easy few bucks. In a discipline where even systematic reviews comprising the whole literature are basically uninterpretable, this is another side of the problem: individual studies being massively overhyped in the era of click-bait nonsense. Hype that isn't much different than what PACE got. It got a lot of publicity disguised as reporting.

But when you have enough experience with this field, you pretty much realize that "a study says X" is actually about as reliable as a random Facebook post, and how the regressing state of this kind of research is being amplified with the similar problem happening in journalism, always pushing the lie on big display front page, with corrections and retractions getting just a single sentence in the back pages. If at all.


Could doing the plank help long Covid?
New research suggests core-strength exercises – especially planks – are effective weapons in the fight against long Covid fatigue
https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/news/a62883084/plank-long-covid/

You might be wondering how this research impacts you, as a runner. While both studies specifically targeted long Covid patients, the implications could be further reaching. Namely, planking might help combat exercise-related tiredness, as well as Covid fatigue. If you’re recovering from illness or just feeling a bit sluggish during your runs, you might find a boost from strengthening your core.

If you’re wrestling with fatigue, consider following a structured, core-centric strength training plan for runners. As this study suggests, doing so will be good news for your midsection, but it might also reignite the energy that keeps you lacing up your running shoes.

Personally I've always found that anything that triggers core muscles is the most reliable way to get PEM. It's basically the top what-not-to-do of what-not-to-dos.

 

[EndME]

Seems like an unwise study. The authors should have known: You have to plank and do the rubiks cube at the same time, only that can solve mind-body issues.

 

[Wonko]

An excise I have some experience with (you'd probably not be surprised at how few studies study deadlifting, squats etc in pwME).

Beyond a tiny bit, if determined, progress is not possible in the plank, for anyone with a similar condition to mine.

And that tiny bit is IMO solely down to learning how to do the plank vs not knowing how to do the plank.

The plank was part of my training for nearly 2 years, I never got any better at it, in fact.....as my technique improved I did the opposite.

But I kept trying coz everyone else can improve, so it must be my technique.....

 

[Mij]

I did a mental plank back in August just from small talk. Does this count?

 

[oldtimer]

I did a mental plank back in August just from small talk. Does this count?

 

[oldtimer]

What a waste of time and money.
I did a plank yesterday for a minute after years of not doing them because I read an article about how strength exercises are better than other types to ward off frailty which is thought to be a huge risk for dementia. Nothing to lose, I thought.
I did nothing else yesterday and today I'm a write-off and a rotator cuff is giving me gyp into the bargain

 

[bobbler]

An excise I have some experience with (you'd probably not be surprised at how few studies study deadlifting, squats etc in pwME).

Beyond a tiny bit, if determined, progress is not possible in the plank, for anyone with a similar condition to mine.

And that tiny bit is IMO solely down to learning how to do the plank vs not knowing how to do the plank.

The plank was part of my training for nearly 2 years, I never got any better at it, in fact.....as my technique improved I did the opposite.

But I kept trying coz everyone else can improve, so it must be my technique.....

Me too when I was moderate

sadly it’s the same misleading pattern as for everything else like this

that you can improve short term on that particular item whilst you prioritise it, and it gets a bit better and a bit better and then either ‘boom’ or that in combo with a slow decline back down with each time you stupidly keep trying to do it not getting the hint it’s now not improving but getting worse each time

so end result is actually worse health and no local improvement (maybe worse than when you started) but put off a lot of other things to achieve that - I think in any other area they might call it a term beginning with f when a result looks like something but is actually due to something else

anyway of course it’s a major issue that these things accidentally always pick timeframes like 6 or 12 weeks

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Never heard of it. Sounds a bit like waterboarding.
Tailored torture for the masochist who wants to make the most of their misery?

 

[Hutan]

An excise I have some experience with (you'd probably not be surprised at how few studies study deadlifting, squats etc in pwME).

Beyond a tiny bit, if determined, progress is not possible in the plank, for anyone with a similar condition to mine.

Ditto for people with a similar condition to mine, given that pilates is all about strengthening the core.

Case series study that included patients with long COVID who participated in a 12-week trunk and pelvic muscle strength training programme.

Twenty-one subjects participated in the study; 81% female, mean age 47.5 years (range: 28-55 years), and median duration of symptoms 21 months (range: 5-24 months); 90.5% of the participants experienced fatigue (MFIS score = 38).

Conclusions: Results suggest that a plank-based strength training programme may be effective in enhancing trunk and pelvic muscle activation in individuals with long COVID.

Analysing what they say there in the abstract:

Case series study = no controls, so we have no idea if people would have had reduced fatigue levels at the end of the period regardless of intervention. Reversion to the mean, and what we know about post-Covid conditions suggests 'yes', some or all of the benefit is probably attributable to time.

The case study series included some patients with long covid, but we don't know how many. As far as we know from the abstract, it might have been 1. Regardless, because the number is less than 21, we can be pretty sure that the total was an inadequate number to draw much in the way of conclusions. But, the authors did not let that stop them saying that the programme 'may be effective in enhancing trunk and pelvic muscle activation in individuals with LC'. If the abstract can't even tell us how many people in this case series had Long Covid, then telling us that their intervention helps people with LC is ridiculous.

"Conclusions: (there's just one) Results suggest that a plank-based strength training programme may be effective in enhancing trunk and pelvic muscle activation in individuals with Long Covid". That is such a weird conclusion. How many people with LC have complained on social media 'if only I could enhance my trunk and pelvic muscle activation, life would be great'?

 

[Sean]

I have been assessed a 4-5 times over the years for basic muscle strength, including the core, and not once have they found anything significant. The confusion on their faces was obvious, their silence about the implications damning, and naturally they still recommended core strength exercises.

The concept of falsifiability has completely escaped these people.

 

[Sly Saint]

Plank based exercises AKA isometric exercises were also found to be most beneficial for high blood pressure;
analysis released last year.

New findings: Planks can lower blood pressure

Planking is one of the best ways to lower blood pressure, researchers have found. This – along with wall squats – are more effective in lowering blood pressure in people with hypertension than any other type of exercise, according to the analysis of 270 clinical trials carried out over the world.

Published:
10 October 2023


Planking is one of the best ways to lower blood pressure, according to new research

Researchers have found that isometric exercises designed to build strength without moving muscles or joints – such as planks and wall squats – can lead to larger falls in blood pressure in people with hypertension than aerobic exercise.

Researchers from Canterbury Christ Church University and Leicester University analysed 270 clinical trials carried out around the world between 1990 and 2023, involving a total of more than 15,000 people, who exercised for two weeks or more.

They looked at how much people’s resting blood pressure dropped after different types of exercise, including aerobic exercise, resistance training and high intensity training, as well as isometric exercises.

While every exercise led to reduced blood pressure, isometric exercises were found to be the most effective.

The researchers say that the blood pressure-lowering effect of isometric exercise is due to it increasing tension in the muscles before a sudden rush of blood when you relax, which increases blood flow.

Current NHS recommendations for managing high blood pressure only include aerobic exercise, such as fast walking of cycling.

But the researchers findings, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, have prompted them to call for updates to current UK guidelines around exercise to include two minutes of wall squats, or holding the plank position four times with two minutes' rest in between, three times a week.

“Each individual is different, and we’re all more likely to be consistent with the types of exercise we enjoy doing and that suit us,” says Nirmala Markandu, Hypertension Nurse Specialist at Blood Pressure UK.

“Knowing that planks and wall squats are so effective at lowering blood pressure is good news for those of us who want to control their blood pressure without having to take up running through winter, for example.”

Blood Pressure UK

eta: there is an easier version of the plank which involves propping yourself up on the arm of a sofa say, rather than lying on the floor. Another useful exercise that pwME might be able to do is squeezing a stress ball in your hand/s (or similar), also supposedly good for blood pressure/circulation. I did both earlier this year. Even for only 10s of seconds at a time.

 

[Hutan]

Researchers from Canterbury Christ Church University and Leicester University analysed 270 clinical trials carried out around the world between 1990 and 2023, involving a total of more than 15,000 people, who exercised for two weeks or more.

I suspect that there might have been some bias in the demographics of the studies. I think it is less likely that the frail elderly and the very sick (people with high blood pressure that is rather resistant to improvement created by exercise) would have been signing up to do planking and wall squats. Instead they were probably in the studies of aerobic exercise; gentle walks and the like.

 

[Sean]

I don't doubt such exercises might help many people on these measures. But that kind of misses the point for those who cannot exercise at all, or not consistently, or not to that degree.