Original title: Muscle fatigue: general understanding and treatment
Muscle fatigue is an exercise-related drop in how much force a person can produce. This review brings together research on the events that lead to fatigue and ways to assess it. Some tests use electrical or magnetic stimulation, while possible markers include changes in nerve activity, blood flow, and muscle chemistry. The authors also examine claims about treatments and supplements, but say fatigue is still only partly understood.
Imagine carrying grocery bags home after a long walk. As you get tired, you may find you can no longer lift them as easily. The hard part is knowing what is causing that loss of strength. In this paper, the walk and heavy bags stand for exercise and force, while the tests and body changes are ways to assess the fatigue and explore its possible causes.
People who exercise and clinicians treating muscle fatigue need ways to assess it and choose treatments. This review describes tests and possible markers, but stresses that the evidence has not yet revealed all the mechanisms or established reliable treatments.
The review describes muscle fatigue after exercise as only partially understood. The abstract does not establish that the proposed biomarkers are reliable, that any particular treatment or supplement works, or which approach is best. It says more research is needed to clarify mechanisms and develop treatments.
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Muscle fatigue: general understanding and treatment — Jing-jing Wan, Zhen Qin, Peng‐Yuan Wang et al. — Experimental & Molecular Medicine — doi:10.1038/emm.2017.194
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.