A Prophylactic Effect of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation Stretching on Pain Intensity, Flexibility and Jump in Subjects with Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage

There is little evidence of strategies for prevention and treatment of exercise-induced muscle damage. The purpose of this study was to examine a Prophylactic effect of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation stretching on pain intensity, flexibility and jump in subjects with exercise-induced muscle damage. Initially, they were orally informed about the purpose and method of conducting the study, and asked to take part .Forty-two Non-athlete male students were equally divided into intervention and control groups. A Vicon Motion Systems consisting of four T-series cameras (200 Hz) and a Kistler force plates (1000Hz) were used to quantify Kinematics and kinetic variables. Then, a visual analog pain scale, flexibility, Rise of center of gravity, lowest value of center of gravity height, flight time, Power average, Maximum landing force, Peak Take off instantaneous velocity were recorded at baseline and 48 hours after post exercise. Data were analyzed in SPSS- 20 using t test with P<0.05. There were significant differences in flexibility between the control and the intervention groups (P=0.022). Too, there were significant trend in muscle soreness pain (P=0.08). There were significant differences observed between before-after in the intervention group for maximum/minimum vertical displacement, Power average, Maximum landing force (P<0.05). Combining PNF stretching with eccentric exercise can have optimum effect on reduction of flexibility, pain, jumping parameters of subjects with exercise-induced muscle damage.