查看文章

• Skeletal muscle adapts to exercise-induced muscle damage in such a way that it is protected from subsequent damaging stimuli. This phenomenon is widely known as the repeated bout effect.• The magnitude of the protective effect can be influenced by many variables including intensity, velocity, and total number of damaging contractions; muscle length; muscle group; age; and sex.• If muscle damage is unilaterally induced, the contralateral muscle also is the recipient of a protective adaptation, although the magnitude of the protective effect is smaller than that of the ipsilateral (damaged) muscle.• We propose that several mechanisms including neural adaptations, alteration to mechanical properties, extracellular matrix remodeling, and biochemical signaling work in concert to coordinate the protective adaptation.