Trial reportJournal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition2026
Individual responses to pomegranate juice on recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage in collegiate male volleyball players.
Trial report in Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
3 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Effects of polyphenol-rich interventions on the time-course of muscle recovery and athletic performance following exercise-induced muscle damage: a three-level meta-analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Pooled it
- Effect ofNutrients · 2026Trial
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundVolleyball demands frequent explosive, stretch-shortening muscle actions that elevate the risk for exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) and delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Polyphenol-rich pomegranate juice (POMj) has been proposed to aid recovery, yet evidence in highly trained team-sport athletes is limited. This study investigated whether short-term POMj enhances functional and isokinetic recovery following an EIMD protocol in collegiate male volleyball players and identified individual responders using the smallest worthwhile change (SWC) method.
methodsFourteen Tier-3 male collegiate volleyball players completed testing in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design. The supplementation was 1000 mL of natural POMj (500 mL evening prior; 500 mL 2 h pre-EIMD protocol) or flavor-matched placebo (PLA). The EIMD protocol consisted of 200 weighted (10% body mass) maximal vertical jumps. The outcomes at baseline (BL) and 48 h post-EIMD included functional tests (vertical jump height, handgrip, medicine-ball throw, flexibility, wall-squat) and knee isokinetic/isometric contraction indices (extension/flexion at 30° s
resultsANOVA revealed a significant main effect of time for most variables (
conclusionsIn highly trained male volleyball athletes, short-term POMj did not outperform placebo on group-mean recovery outcomes at 48 h post-EIMD; however, SWC-based analyses showed a higher proportion of meaningful responders with POMj in selected high-velocity isokinetic measures, supporting responder-focused evaluations of recovery nutraceuticals in sport-specific settings.
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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.