The Effect of Nutritional Interventions on Exercise-induced Muscle Damage

The exercise-induced muscle damage is associated with eccentric activities affecting muscle structural unit through micro-injury that can promote a local inflammatory response, muscle damage and delayed onset muscle soreness. These events can cause an impact on athletic performance and lower adherence to the training programs. To optimize muscle recovery after the damage caused by exercise is essential to ensure adequate caloric intake , with required amounts of macronutrients and micronutrients. Recent studies have been showed that the protein intake before sleeping is a effective strategy to inhibit muscle protein degradation, stimulate muscle protein synthesis and facilitate adaptive response of skeletal muscle to physical exercise. Furthermore, evidences on the use of anti-inflammatory nutrients have suggested that diets rich in omega 3 can reduce inflammation through inhibition of pro-inflammatory mediators. Therefore, the intake of this nutrient combined with a protein meal before sleeps and the control of food intake can improve adherence to sports training. The study will consist of three groups where everyone will receive an individualized diet. A randomization procedure will determine the type of intervention. The distribution of the groups will be as follows: group 1 (control) - volunteers follow individualized diet and olive oil capsules and maltodextrin; group 2 - intervention with omega 3 more individualized diet ; group 3 - omega 3 and whey protein isolate intervention more individualized diet.

The order of procedures to be performed will be: (1) Nutritional and Anthropometric assessment; (2) Individual orientation of diet and distribution of supplements; (3) Baseline assessment (peak torque, muscle pain levels and vastus lateralis and rectus femoris echo intensity; (4) Muscle damage induction by eccentric exercise protocol; (5) Reviews after 24h, 48h, 72h, which will follow the routine and the methods applied at baseline.

Inclusion criteria

• 18 - 40 years aged
• BMI 18,5-25kg/m2
• physical exercise: < 150 minutes per week

Exclusion criteria

• pregnancy/ lactation
• vegetarian/vegan
• chronic disease
• pulmonary and neurologic disease
• muscle injury/knee muscle injury
• medication use: anti-inflammatory and anticoagulant
• fish oil and derivate allergy
• dietary supplements use in the last month: whey protein, casein, albumin, glutamin, meat and soy protein, creatine, branched chain amino acid, high calorie supplement, n-3 supplement and antioxidants