Figure 4 Effect of CHO and Cr-CHO on plasma CK activity after exercise-induced LGK 974 muscle damage. Data (mean ± SE) represents plasma CK activity (IU/l) taken during the 14 days recovery. † represents

(p < 0.05) difference between groups. Pre-exercise LDH activity was 156.6 ± 37.1 IU·1-1 and 148.0 ± 31.3 IU·1-1 (mean ± SEM) in the CHO and Cr-CHO supplemented group, respectively. No significant differences were detected. Similar to CK, a significant main effect for time (P < 0.0001) was observed for LDH activity following the resistance exercise session, with subsequent post-hoc analysis showing LDH activity to be significantly elevated above baseline at 24 hours (P < 0.01), 48 hours (P < 0.0001), 72 hours (P < 0.0001), 96 hours (P < 0.0001) and at day 7 (P < 0.05) post-exercise. However, the increases in LDH were far lower than for CK, such that only a trend towards a main effect for group was observed (P = 0.093), although this still indicates that plasma LDH activity was generally

lower in the Cr-CHO supplemented group compared to the CHO group (Figure 5). Figure 5 Effect of CHO and Cr-CHO on plasma LDH activity after exercise-induced muscle damage. Data (mean ± SE) represents plasma CK activity (IU/l) taken during the 14 days recovery. Discussion The primary objective of this study was to determine whether consumption of Cr prior to, and following exercise-induced www.selleckchem.com/products/ink128.html damage, improves force recovery Obatoclax Mesylate (GX15-070) and markers of muscle damage in healthy individuals. Following repeated eccentric exercises, isokinetic knee extension and flexion and isometric knee extension peak torque was significantly reduced, and remained significantly lower than pre-exercise values, for approximately 4 days or longer. Importantly, isometric (21% higher)

and isokinetic (10% higher) knee extension strength were both significantly greater during recovery with consumption of a Cr-CHO supplement compared to a supplement with CHO alone. The observed decrements in muscle strength were in accordance with previous studies, with Brown and colleagues [14] showing similar reductions, although others demonstrated less reductions in strength [7, 17]. Such varying responses in the magnitude of strength loss following eccentric exercises are possibly due to the different muscle groups used (i.e. elbow flexors of the forearm vs. knee extensor/flexors muscles groups) and/or the protocol utilized to induce muscle damage [7, 17, 20]. It should also be noted that muscle strength was expressed as a percentage of pre-exercise strength values and normalised to contralateral (undamaged) controls.