Negative psychological factors’ influence on delayed onset muscle soreness intensity, reduced cervical function.., 2022, Fabero-Garrido et al

Full title: Negative psychological factors’ influence on delayed onset muscle soreness intensity, reduced cervical function and daily activities in healthy participants

Highlights

• Influence of negative psychological factors on DOMS intensity and cervical function was examined.
• Psychological distress predicted DOMS intensity and loss of cervical function after DOMS induction.
• Kinesiophobia/catastrophizing did not predict loss of function or cervical DOMS after its induction.
• The protocol used generated loss of cervical function and also cervical DOMS, especially at 24h.
• High levels of distress may be a risk factor for chronification of symptoms caused by acute injury.

Abstract

We examined the influence of negative psychological factors (catastrophizing, distress and kinesiophobia) on delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) intensity, cervical function (strength and range of motion) and on daily activities (ADL), and the suitability of an exercise protocol designed to induce DOMS within the cervical region. Psychological factors and cervical function were assessed in 86 healthy participants at baseline before applying a DOMS provocation protocol in the cervical flexor muscles. After 24h, cervical function was reassessed. In addition, at 24h and 48h, the intensity of DOMS and its impact on ADL were assessed using the visual analog scale (VAS). The protocol was effective given that it generated low-moderate intensity DOMS (VAS≈30-40mm) and a statistically significant reduction in cervical strength and range of motion. Psychological distress (anxiety and depression), but not kinesiophobia and catastrophism, predicted a loss of cervical strength (explained 43% of the variance) and range of motion (explained 22% of the variance) after induction of DOMS. In addition, participants’ anxiety level predicted DOMS intensity at 24h (explained 19% of the variance).

Perspective: The present findings highlight the relevance of evaluating psychological distress as a preventive/therapeutic measure, given that high levels of distress could lead to more intense and disabling pain in acute injuries, and all these aspects are considered risk factors for the chronification of symptoms.

Paywall, https://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(22)00002-5/fulltext

 

Dunno about that guy, but I have a general idea of how much pain I'm gonna be in in 24 hours if I overexert to a certain extent. My psychological distress will usually match that.

 

I have no idea what this is trying to say. Can't even attempt to make sense of this jumble.

I see it often framed as a negative experience so this is really weird to me because I always loved DOMS, unless I misunderstand what it is. The feeling of being sore from a hard workout has always been pleasant to me, so I have no idea how to even attempt to make sense of this nonsense. And there's so much variance in muscle mass and composition, there is way too much natural variation between different people.

To say nothing of "this arbitrary rating may explain 20% of another arbitrary evaluation made up of vague ratings so this means it can predict it". If at least it wasn't the norm to just wildly speculate, maybe something useful could be produced in this field of study, but as it is, all of this is basically pre-science making stuff up as they go along.

And as usual depression and anxiety are so loosely-defined to mean everything under the sun that data can be manipulated to say anything, as this "study" is clear evidence of.

The waste of resources in medical research is absurd. Most studies are clearly a complete waste and no one gives a damn. Amazing.

 

So questionnaire answering behaviour predicts questionnaire answering behaviour after the exercise protocol (in healthy participants). The mistake is the authors assuming that answers on the DOMS scale is only influenced by experienced pain, rather than being filtered by cognitions including pre-existing beliefs.