Original articleThermal Pain Perception After Aerobic Exercise
Section snippets
Participants
A total of 14 male and female volunteers participated in the 2 portions of the study (table 1). Exclusion criteria included known cardiac, pulmonary, or metabolic disorders, diseases affecting sensory nerves, musculoskeletal disorders preventing safe participation in exercise, and pregnancy. In addition, people taking medications including anti-inflammatories, antihistamines, pain medications, or antidepressants were excluded.
Participants were provided with general information about the intent
Results
Figure 1 presents cold sensory threshold and cold pain threshold data for the 10 participants who completed series 1. Hot sensory threshold and hot pain threshold data are shown in figure 2. There were no significant differences among thermal tests before, 5 minutes after, and 30 minutes after exercise for cold sensory threshold (P=.81), cold pain threshold (P=.21), hot sensory threshold (P=.13), or hot pain threshold (P=.19).
Figure 3 presents thermal pain ratings for the 14 subjects that
Discussion
This study was designed to investigate the influence of aerobic exercise on thermal pain perception. Thirty minutes of exercise at 75% of V̇o2max, an intensity and duration of exercise shown to alter pain perception to electric and mechanical stimuli,2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14 did not significantly alter sensory threshold, pain threshold, or pain ratings to hot or cold stimuli. These results suggest that exercise-induced analgesia is dependent on the type of painful stimulus used.
It was somewhat
Conclusions
No significant changes in sensory threshold, pain threshold, or pain ratings in response to either hot or cold stimuli were found after 30 minutes of exercise at 75% of V̇o2max. Because this duration and intensity of exercise have been shown to elicit exercise-induced analgesia to mechanical and electric stimuli, the results of our study indicate that alterations in pain perception after exercise may be dependent on the type of painful stimulus that is applied.
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Supported by the Rehabilitation R&D Service, Department of Veterans Affairs (grant no. F1849P), and the Physical Medicine Research Foundation’s Woodbridge Grants and Awards Program.
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the authors(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.