ArticleCurrent reviews in musculoskeletal medicine2015
Alternative treatments for muscle injury: massage, cryotherapy, and hyperbaric oxygen.
Article in Current reviews in musculoskeletal medicine, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Effect of Post-Exercise Cryotherapy on Recovery Characteristics: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.PloS one · 2015Pooled it
- Trial
- The Effects of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy on Post-Training Recovery in Jiu-Jitsu Athletes.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Mechanisms and Efficacy of Massage Therapy for Post-Exercise Muscle Repair: A Narrative Review.Muscles (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Evaluation of Muscle Oxygenation Responses to Eccentric Exercise and Recovery Enhancement Using Capacitive-Resistive Electric Transfer and Vibration Therapy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the Effectiveness of TECAR and Vibration Therapy as Methods Supporting Muscle Recovery After Strenuous Eccentric Exercise.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- The cold truth: the role of cryotherapy in the treatment of injury and recovery from exercise.European journal of applied physiology · 2021Review
- Icing treatment in rats with crush syndrome can improve survival through reduction of potassium concentration and mitochondrial function disorder effect.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2020Article
- Hyperbaric oxygen reduces inflammation, oxygenates injured muscle, and regenerates skeletal muscle via macrophage and satellite cell activation.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Spanish Consensus Statement: The Treatment of Muscle Tears in Sport.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Current evidence suggests that popular alternative therapies such as massage, cryotherapy, and hyperbaric oxygen exposure as currently practiced on humans have little effect on recovery from minor muscle damage such as induced by exercise. While further research is still needed, hyperbaric oxygen exposure shows clear promise for potentially being a successful adjunct treatment for enhancing muscle repair and recovery from more severe crush on contusion injury in humans. Cryotherapy or icing, as currently practiced, will not likely be successful in cooling muscle sufficiently to have any significant influence on muscle repair regardless of the degree of injury. However, based on studies in animal models, it may be that if sufficient muscle cooling could be achieved in humans, it could actually delay recovery and increase muscle scarring following significant muscle damage. Conclusions about the effectiveness of massage on influencing muscle recovery from more severe injury cannot yet be made due to a lack of experimental evidence with a more significant muscle damage model.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.