Mechanical hyperalgesia in athletes’ shoulder: integrative review

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Chronic shoulder pain in throwing athletes is a common complaint in everyday practice. Despite the growing number of publications, it is unclear whether these athletes have mechanical hyperalgesia associated with pain, which could alter the treatment options undertaken. The aim of the study was to summarize the results of the main evidence found on the pressure pain threshold in the shoulder, to compare these results in athletes of different sports. METHODS: Electronic search via PubMed/Medline, PEDro, SPORTDiscuss, Web of Science and Scielo databases was done verifying studies in English or Portuguese. The keywords: pressure pain threshold; athletes; shoulder; pressure algometry and its derivations were searched in both languages. The articles should have included athletes from sports that use upper limbs and that assess the pressure pain threshold in the shoulder. Five studies were included for analysis. RESULTS: Athletes with shoulder pain had a lower pressure pain threshold. In swimmers, changes in mechanical sensitivity to pain seem to be related to weekly training hours, years of sports practice and age group. Sports competitions apparently have an influence on the reduction of pressure pain threshold in amateur tennis players. CONCLUSION: Swimming athletes have a lower pressure pain threshold and this is related to the volume and time of training in the modality. This variable seems to be sport-dependent, and the absence of a greater number of studies in sports such as tennis and wheelchair basketball limits conclusions on this subject.