Exercise Induced Muscle Damage Post Dance and Sprint Specific Exercise in Females
Condition: Exercise Induced Muscle Damage
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      There is a paucity of studies investigating exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) in females
      and only one in response to dance-type exercise. This study aimed to firstly elucidate the
      physiological profile of EIMD following a dance-specific protocol, and second to compare the
      magnitude of damage to that experienced following a sport-specific protocol in physically
      active females.
    

Detailed description: 
      Twenty nine female recreational dancers from a University dance team volunteered to take part
      in the study. A 3-day food diary and activity log completed prior to testing determined that
      there were no differences in physical activity levels or energy and macronutrient intakes
      between participants. Subjects were asked to replicate their reported diets as closely as
      possible throughout the testing period. A menstrual cycle questionnaire was also completed in
      order to determine menstrual cycle phase; all testing took place during the early/mid luteal
      phase.

      Participants were randomly assigned to two exercise groups designed to induce EIMD; either a
      dance-specific protocol (DPFT) or a sport-specific repeated sprint protocol (SSRS).
      Participants completed the DPFT (n=15) or SSRS (n=14) and a battery of commonly used muscle
      damage indices were measured pre, immediately post and 24-, 48-, and 72 h post muscle damage.
      These were; delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), limb girth, countermovement jump height
      (CMJ), reactive strength index (RSI), maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVC) sprint
      performance, and total creatine kinase (CK) activity. Participants were tested at the same
      time on subsequent days (± 1 h) to account for diurnal variation. Participants were asked to
      avoid strenuous exercise, alcohol, caffeine, nutritional supplements and any
      anti-inflammatory drugs or alternative treatments for the duration of the study.

      Statistical software (IBM SPSS v21, IBM, USA) was used for inferential analysis and
      significance was accepted at the P < .05 a priori. Mauchley's test assessed the sphericity of
      the data and where appropriate, violations were corrected using the Greenhouse-Geisser. To
      explore our first objective, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures
      (group, 1; time, 5) was performed on all variables in order to analyse the muscle damage
      response to the DPFT. For the second aim a two-way ANOVA with repeated measures (group, 2;
      time, 5) was used for all variables to allow for comparison of the muscle damage response
      between the DPFT and the SSRS. Where appropriate LSD post-hoc analysis was performed.
    

Intervention name(s): DPFT; SSRS
Intervention type(s): Other; Other
Intervention description(s): The DPFT described previously (Redding et al., 2009) involves the repetition of a 'dance phrase' representative of contemporary dance, with each phrase separated by a 2 minute rest period. For the present study the originally described test was extended; the adapted protocol involved 10 x 1 minute movement phrases, each separated by 2 minutes rest.; The SSRS (Howatson & Milak, 2009) involved 15 x 30 m sprints with a rapid 10 m deceleration phase, with each sprint departing every 65 seconds.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Basic Science
Keywords: Dance; Sprint; Females; Recovery