Abstract:

Objective To conduct a visualized analysis of the researches related to the physiotherapy for exercise-induced muscle damage, identify the present situation, and predict the hotspots and developing trends.

Methods Relevant literature about physiotherapy of exercise-induced muscle damage were collected in Web of Science Core Collection from the establishment of the database to October 31, 2022, and CiteSpace 6.1.R3 software was used for visualized analysis.

Results A total of 357 articles were included, involving 51 countries/regions, 532 authors and 346 institutions. The annual number of documents issued showed an overall upward trend. The country with the highest number of documents was the United States, the organization was Edith Cowan University, and the author was Howatson Glyn. Keywords with high attention in the last three years were performance, eccentric exercise, recovery and soreness. Cited document clustering words were exercise-induced muscle damage, delayed-onset muscle soreness, foam rolling and exercise performance.

Conclusion Exercise-induced muscle damage is a muscle micro-injury, and the most important concerns are post-injury muscle soreness, myofascial pain and ultrastructural changes. Researches about physiotherapy of exercise-induced muscle damage are gradually increasing. Main physiotherapy treatments include cryotherapy, cold water therapy, massage, foam rolling and eccentric exercise. Presently, eccentric exercise is a hot topic in this field, and foam rolling would be hot in the future.

Key words: exercise-induced muscle damage, physiotherapy, visualized analysis