Journal of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine (May 2018)
Mechanism and implications of hyperpnea exaggeration at the onset of exercise in mechanical hyperalgesia after eccentric exercise
Abstract
The ventilatory response to moderate-intensity step load exercise has three temporal phases: an initial rapidly increasing phase I, followed by a slower exponential phase II, that leads to the steady state phase III. In muscles with mechanical hyperalgesia (delayed onset muscle soreness) and/or muscle damage a few days after eccentric exercise (ECC), an interesting phenomenon of increased ventilatory response at phases II and III during constant-load exercise and incremental exercise has been reported. However, the mechanisms behind this phenomenon have not been clarified. At least a neural mechanism is partly responsible for this phenomenon because the ventilatory response at neurally modulated phase I has been shown to be exaggerated 2 days after ECC (D2). In the present review, we focus on our previous work to identify the potential mechanism underlying the exaggerated modulation in phase I ventilatory response at D2, in which ECC-induced muscle pain is assumed to be at the peak. We also discuss the physiological and practical implications of this phenomenon.
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