Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Sports Injuries and Training Recovery

Article source: Information Statistics Department, Yaodu District People's Hospital, Linfen City

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Sports Injuries and Training Recovery

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can alleviate exercise-induced inflammatory responses, reduce pain following sports injuries, and more rapidly and effectively improve the hypoxic environment within an athlete's body. It also helps soothe mood and improve sleep quality. For sports injuries and exercise-induced fatigue—including acute muscle strains, joint ligament sprains, and chronic overuse injuries—hyperbaric oxygen therapy offers significant therapeutic and rehabilitative benefits. Many top-tier coaches and athletes worldwide already utilize hyperbaric oxygen to prevent and treat sports-related fatigue or injuries. Furthermore, numerous elite athletes bring portable hyperbaric chambers for use in the athletes' villages during major competitions. If you encounter issues like sports injuries during your fitness routine, hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be applied to help your body recover faster, supporting you in building a stronger physique!

Sports Injuries 

Sports injuries refer to various injuries occurring during physical activity, primarily affecting bones, muscles, joints, tendons, and nerves. Sports injuries can be categorized into two types: acute traumatic injuries and injuries caused by overuse. Following a sports injury, timely rehabilitation training is essential to restore the patient's athletic capability to pre-injury levels.

【Clinical Manifestations】 The clinical presentation of sports injuries varies depending on the site of injury. Generally, common symptoms include varying degrees of pain and swelling at the injury site, impaired limb movement, dysfunction of the affected organ, possibly accompanied by bleeding at the injury site, sensory abnormalities, and so forth.

【Conventional Treatment】 The crucial treatment principle for sports injuries is early intervention. The sooner treatment measures are implemented, the fewer clinical symptoms manifest, and the shorter the healing and recovery time becomes.

【Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy】 Hyperbaric oxygen therapy not only treats sports injuries but also aids the recovery process during post-injury training. The primary mechanisms of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in sports injuries and training recovery are as follows:

• Promotes Capillary Angiogenesis: Hyperbaric oxygen enhances the physiological role of fibroblasts, providing a collagen matrix for new capillaries, thereby accelerating capillary regeneration and facilitating the formation of new vascular networks.
• Reduces Tissue Exudation and Local Edema, Improves Microcirculation: Based on the fundamental principles of hyperbaric oxygen, it directly constricts blood vessels, reducing local blood supply by approximately 20%. It also induces reflexive vasodilation at the injury site, decreasing local exudation, increasing physically dissolved oxygen in tissues, interrupting the vicious cycle of ischemia and edema, thereby reducing local swelling and improving micro-circulation.
• Reduces Inflammatory Response: Hyperbaric oxygen can decrease the production of histamine and prostaglandins at the injury site, lowering the post-injury inflammatory response, and reducing the extent and severity of local swelling.
• Promotes Metabolism: Hyperbaric oxygen significantly reduces excessive levels of lactate, pyruvate, and ammonia in the serum after intense exercise, as well as myoglobin levels following muscle tissue damage. It accelerates the clearance of these metabolic byproducts, facilitating recovery from injury.

(5) Mitigates Free Radical Damage: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy helps control the adhesion of neutrophils to the injury site and reduces the subsequent release of oxygen free radicals. It decreases the excessive production of free radicals post-injury, prevents lipid peroxidation reactions triggered by free radicals on cell membranes (e.g., in skeletal and cardiac muscle), which form lipid peroxides, and restores the activity of Na⁺-K⁺-ATPase on cell membranes. This aids the body in promptly clearing excess oxygen free radicals, protects the structural integrity of body cells after exercise, and thereby maintains normal cellular function.

【Evidence-Based Medicine Evaluation】 International studies on hyperbaric oxygen therapy for sports injuries demonstrate good safety and efficacy. A cohort study by the Yagishita K research team, observing the effect of hyperbaric oxygen on the rehabilitation of knee injuries in rugby players, found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy significantly improved pain during jogging and shortened the recovery time for knee injuries.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can significantly improve blood supply to ischemic and hypoxic tissues, enhance micro-circulatory function, and markedly benefit human brain tissue, heart, kidneys, and lung function.

This article is reproduced from the Information Statistics Department, Yaodu District People's Hospital of Linfen. The original article link is attached below.