Abstract
Purpose
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) can reduce acute and chronic pain. Unilateral fatigue can produce discomfort in the affected limb and force and activation deficits in contralateral non-exercised muscles. TENS-induced local pain analgesia effects on non-local fatigue performance are unknown. Hence, the aim of the study was to determine if TENS-induced pain suppression would augment force output during a fatiguing protocol in the treated and contralateral muscles.
Methods
Three experiments were integrated for this article. Following pre-tests, each experiment involved 20 min of TENS, sham, or a control condition on the dominant quadriceps. Then either the TENS-treated quadriceps (TENS_Treated) or the contralateral quadriceps (TENS_Contra) was tested. In a third experiment, the TENS and sham conditions involved two\; 100-s isometric maximal voluntary contractions (MVC) (30-s recovery) followed by testing of the contralateral quadriceps (TENS_Contra-Fatigue). Testing involved single knee extensors (KE) MVCs (pre- and post-test) and a post-test 30% MVC to task failure.
Results
The TENS-treated study induced greater (p = 0.03; 11.0%) time to KE (treated leg) failure versus control. The TENS_Contra-Fatigue induced significant (p = 0.04; 11.7%) and near-significant (p = 0.1; 7.1%) greater time to contralateral KE failure versus sham and control, respectively. There was a 14.5% (p = 0.02) higher fatigue index with the TENS (36.2 ± 10.1%) versus sham (31.6 ± 10.6%) conditions in the second fatigue intervention set (treated leg). There was no significant post-fatigue KE fatigue interaction with the TENS_Contra.
Conclusions
Unilateral TENS application to the dominant KE prolonged time to failure in the treated and contralateral KE suggesting a global pain modulatory response.
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Abbreviations
- DNIC:
-
Diffuse noxious inhibitory control
- EMG:
-
Electromyography
- KE:
-
Knee extensors
- MVC:
-
Maximal voluntary contractions
- NLMF:
-
Non-local muscle fatigue
- rms:
-
Root mean square of the electromyography signal
- TENS:
-
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation
- TENS_Treated:
-
TENS-treated dominant quadriceps with testing of treated dominant quadriceps
- TENS_Contra:
-
TENS-treated dominant quadriceps with testing of contralateral non-dominant quadriceps
- TENS_Contra-Fatigue:
-
TENS-treated dominant quadriceps subjected to a fatigue protocol (2 × 100 s MVCs) with testing of treated dominant and untreated non-dominant quadriceps
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Acknowledgements
The study was funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant number 2017-03728).
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BDG: data interpretation and writing of manuscript. CEM, PGMJ, AH, BASM, BA, MC, PJ, MB, FK, KS, RM: data collection, analysis, and review of manuscript.
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Behm, D.G., Colwell, E.M., Power, G.M.J. et al. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation improves fatigue performance of the treated and contralateral knee extensors. Eur J Appl Physiol 119, 2745–2755 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-019-04253-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-019-04253-z