BACKGROUND: High-intensity eccentric exercise can induce delayed-onset muscle soreness in skeletal muscles. Cold therapy is a non-drug treatment that can weaken blood lactic acid, relieve fatigue, reduce muscle inflammation, promote skeletal muscle regeneration and speed up recovery time after exercise. Cold therapy is a commonly used physical therapy to prevent and treat delayed-onset muscle soreness, but it is unclear how the body makes adaptive adjustment to achieve self-limited recovery under low temperature stress. OBJECTIVE(S): To observe the effect of cold therapy on the self-limited recovery of delayed-onset muscle soreness. METHOD(S): Non-long-term (n = 24) and long-term exercise (n = 24) male high school students acted as the subjects, and were randomized into non-long-term exercise control group, non-long-term exercise plus ice massage group, non-long-term exercise plus immersion in cold water group, as well as long-term exercise control group, long-term exercise plus ice massage group, long-term exercise plus immersion in cold water group, with 8 students in each group. All subjects performed in-situ vertical jump to simulate the high-intensity eccentric exercise, followed by no intervention, ice massage, and immersion in cold water, respectively. The trial was approved by the Ethic Committee of the School of Physical Education, Guangdong Maoming Preschool Teachers College on March 1, 2019, with an approval number GPNCM-IACUC-2019-S03001. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION(S): For non-long-term exercisers, cold therapy could effectively eliminate blood lactic acid after exercise (p < 0.05), significantly reduce the surface temperature of the lower limbs at 30 minutes after exercise (p < 0.05), and significantly decrease subjective muscle pain within 24 to 96 hours after exercise (p < 0.05). For long-term exercisers, cold therapy had no effect on blood lactic acid level and muscle pain level (p > 0.05). Therefore, cold therapy can resist and delay the exercise fatigue phenomenon of non-long-term exercise adolescents after one-time high-intensity exercise, promote the self-limited recovery of the body, and reduce the risk of exercise.

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