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Updated: Sep 24, 2025

Application of Consistent Massage-Like Perturbations on Mouse Calves and Monitoring the Resulting Intramuscular Pressure Changes
Published on: September 20, 2019
Acute massage stimulates parasympathetic activation after a single exhaustive muscle contraction exercise
Nur Effa Nira Mat Isar1, Mohd Hazwan Zikri Abdul Halim2, Marilyn Li Yin Ong1
1Exercise and Sports Science Programme, School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia.
Background:
Heart rate variability (HRV) is one of the tools that can assess autonomic activities during exercise or recovery. Massage is an often-used recovery method with varying recovery outcome. This study was to investigate the effect of lower limb massage on recovery HRV following repeated knee flexion and extension exercise-to-exhaustion.
Methods:
Nine healthy men aged between 20 and 30 years old were recruited and randomly assigned to a control group (n = 5) and massage group (n = 4). The HRV spectral analysis was performed at baseline, pre-exercise, post-exercise and immediately post-intervention. For intervention, the participants in the massage group received a 10-min massage on the quadriceps and hamstring muscles of the dominant leg whereas the control group received none. The HRV was presented as low-frequency (LF) peak (Hz), power (ms2), power (normalised unit; n.u.) and high-frequency (HF), peak (Hz), power (ms2), power (n.u.) as well as LF/HF ratio.
Results:
Spectral power analysis showed there were no significant differences in the LF indices and LF/HF ratio with massage. HRV normalisation data revealed a within-subject difference with massage.
Conclusions:
Massage caused an immediate parasympathetic activation during recovery from a single exhaustive muscle contraction exercise. Hence, massage may be used to potentiate recovery.
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