Exercise provides numerous positive effects to the participant. The majority of the mental, physical, and emotional benefits are provided to the consistent participant who meets national exercise guidelines each week. In addition, there are many short term benefits that are provided to even single bouts of exercise. For example, the mental health benefits of taking a walk outside on a nice day.
In our Boulder Physical Therapy and Lafayette Physical Therapy practices we often prescribe exercise to help patients reduce their symptoms including pain. As we have discussed in previous blogs, our bodies produce a significant anti inflammatory effect to combat any inflammation produced by exercise. This effect is greater than what is needed for a given exercise session and the additional powerful anti inflammatory effects are used throughout the body.
Another key effect of a single bout of exercise is pain relief. Prior research has show a single bout of exercise reduces pain in the exercised muscle but also in areas not involved in the exercise. Researchers have described this effect as exercise induced hypoalgesia. Previous researchers have found a significant relationship between fatigue, either through longer duration or higher intensity exercise, and analgesic effects.
A recent study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research studied the analgesic effects of two different strength training prescriptions (Hogge et al. 2025). Authors studied 31 healthy, pain free, adults and had them perform two different exercise protocols based on the 1 repetition max of the quadricep muscle. Sessions included either 3 sets at 50% of their 1 repetition max on a leg extension machine. Each sets repetitions were stopped either at low fatigue (3/10) or high fatigue (8/10). Authors assessed the pain pressure threshold of the quadricep and upper trapezius muscles to determine the analgesic effects both locally and globally. They reported the greatest reduction in pain in the exercised muscle was found with high fatigue exercise, but global effects could be found with both prescriptions. These global effects were modulated by individual factors including pain inhibition and fear.
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