Massage is a common conservative intervention used to treat myalgia. Although subjective reports have supported the premise that massage decreases pain, few studies have systematically investigated the dose response characteristics of massage relative to a control group. The purpose of this study was to perform a double-blinded, randomized controlled trial of the effects of massage on mechanical hyperalgesia (pressure pain thresholds, PPT) and perceived pain using delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) as an endogenous model of myalgia. Participants were randomly assigned to a no-treatment control, superficial touch, or deep-tissue massage group. Eccentric wrist extension exercises were performed at visit 1 to induce DOMS 48 hours later at visit 2. Pain, assessed using visual analog scales (VAS), and PPTs were measured at baseline, after exercise, before treatment, and after treatment. Deep massage decreased pain (48.4% DOMS reversal) during muscle stretch. Mechanical hyperalgesia was reduced (27.5% reversal) after both the deep massage and superficial touch groups relative to control (increased hyperalgesia by 38.4%). Resting pain did not vary between treatment groups.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 43. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 12 April 2025.
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#1,210,756
of 34,410,798 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Pain
#216
of 3,235 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#2,428
of 128,255 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Pain
#3
of 35 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,410,798 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,235 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 128,255 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 35 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
