A Comparison of the Effect of Massage With Lavender Gel and Piroxicam Gel on Exercise-induced Muscle Soreness in Male Students of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences

 Muscular pain is a common complication of physical activity. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of massage with lavender gel and piroxicam gel on exercise-induced muscle pain in male students of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences.

This semi-experimental study was performed on 75 male students of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences in 2018. The Samples were randomly divided into three groups of 25, including a lavender gel massage group, a piroxicam gel massage group, and a placebo gel massage group. The specimens were randomly divided into three groups of 25, including a lavender gel massage group, a piroxicam gel massage group, and a placebo gel massage group. The training program lasted for 45 minutes, including 10 minutes of warming up and doing stretching exercises, 30 minutes of exercises and the main exercises and 5 minutes for cooling. The research instrument was a checklist for the demographic characteristics of the samples and the Thalog malformation questionnaire. Samples completed the Thalog pain questionnaire after completing the exercise and also after the massage. The Mean±SD were used for descriptive statistics. Normaly distributed data were analyticaly analyzed by paired t-test and ANOVA and non-normaly distributed data were analyticaly analyzed by Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis tests.

 The results showed that muscle pain induced by exercise in all three groups after massage was significantly reduced compared to before massage (P<0.001). The results of Kruskal-Wallis test showed that the difference in muscle pain before and after massage with the three gels used 
(P=0.002) was statistically significant. Massage with lavender gel compared to piroxicam and placebo groups was able to reduce more the muscle pain.

 Massage with lavender gel compared to the piroxicam gel and placebo gel can be a better way to reduce muscle pain after exercise.