Effect of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) ingestion on muscle damage response to resistance exercise and training

Muscle damage and soreness may discourage resistance exercise participation. Our purpose was to determine if DHA ingestion affects the muscle damage response to: 1. acute eccentric exercise, 2. initiation of a subsequent resistance training program. Forty‐one healthy, untrained young adult male subjects consumed DHA (2 g/d) or placebo for 28 d before an eccentric exercise bout with the non‐dominant arm (six sets of 10 using 140% 1RM) on day 1. Subjects continued supplementation and began a multiple‐exercise resistance training program on day 4 and continued 3 d per week through d 17. Muscle damage was assessed using maximal isometric muscle force, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS, 100 mm scale), range of motion (ROM) and serum CK (analyzed as log) on days 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 12, 17. The acute response to eccentric exercise (day 1–4) was reduced muscle strength (32.9%) and ROM (16%) and increased DOMS (32 mm) and CK to 3713 U/L. DHA lowered the overall CK response (p= 0.045) but did not influence the response of other factors to the acute bout. When all time points were analyzed, DHA did not influence muscle strength or ROM response but tended to dampen CK (p = 0.058) and DOMS (p = 0.086) over the 17 days. In summary, DHA reduced a marker of muscle damage following acute eccentric exercise and tended to dampen this marker and soreness during the initial period of resistance training. Funded by a grant from Martek Biosciences Corporation.