Therapeutic effects of massage and electrotherapy on muscle tone, stiffness and muscle contraction following gastrocnemius muscle fatigue.
Joong-San Wang
PMID 28210061WHAT IT FOUND
After calf fatigue, both TENS alone and TENS plus massage lowered calf muscle tone and stiffness and increased calf muscle contraction one day after treatment.
There was no significant difference between the two groups over time.
Key findings
01Both the TENS-only group and the combined massage-plus-TENS group showed significantly decreased gastrocnemius muscle tone and stiffness and significantly increased muscle contraction one day after the intervention.
02There was no significant difference in the improvement effects of each group over time.
03Two days after intervention, both groups showed decreased gastrocnemius tone and stiffness and increased contraction, but significant lateral gastrocnemius tone and stiffness decreases occurred only in the TENS group.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study included only 20 healthy men, so it cannot be generalized to women or people with neurological disorders. The follow-up was only 24 and 48 hours, so longer-term effects were not tested. There was no sham or no-treatment control, so natural recovery may have contributed to the changes. No massage-only group was included, so the effect of massage alone could not be separated from the effect of TENS. The methods description of massage timing across the TENS and combined-therapy groups is inconsistent, and the exact intervention dose is unclear.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that adding massage to TENS improves recovery more than TENS alone. The study found no significant difference in improvement effects over time between groups, and it involved only 20 healthy young men.