The effects of delayed onset muscle soreness after eccentric exercise on the position sense and shooting performance of the wheelchair basketballers

Eccentric exercise is defined as a type of exercise produce muscle power while lengthening. Eccentric muscle activity is mechanically more effective than concentric and isometric exercise but muscle injury may expose. Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS); occurs a few hours after exercise eccentric muscle activity, which especially individuals are unaccustomed and causes temporary decreasing joint range of motion, muscle performance, muscle strength and increasing muscle swelling and plasma creatine kinase (CK) activity. In the literature any study has not been obtained about delayed-onset muscle soreness related to wheelchair basketballers. In this study, we investigated the effect of DOMS on motor performance and position sense of the upper extremity while loading eccentric exercise to elbow joint.In our study, 10 wheelchair basketball players (average age: 32.6 ± 7.61) were included in. For the first day, for the measurement of plasma CK activity, 30 microliter blood sample was taken from the earlobe; and then arm circumference, range of motion, position sense, muscle pain, muscle tenderness and shooting percentage were measured with same order. These measurements were repeated after 30 minutes, 24 hours and 48 hours. One week later, participants repeated the same measurements. In the same day, 1 repeated maximum of all participants was determined to determine the severity of eccentric exercise. Exercise protocol which would lead DOMS was applied to all participants. Tests were repeated after 30 minutes, 24 and 48 hours after exercise.As the results of this study, CK activity in plasma, arm girth measurement, muscle pain while isometric muscle tension, muscle pain while palpating the muscle and position sense loss significantly increased; elbow joint angle of flexion and extension, pressure-pain threshold and shooting percentage of the basketballers significantly decreased after eccentric exercise protocol. Muscle pain at resting position and resting joint angle of the upper extremity was no significant difference after eccentric exercise protocol. These findings introduce that DOMS effects negatively upper extremity motor performance and position sense of the wheelchair basketball players.