TABLE 2.

Summary of articles about effect of ginger on DOMS

Author, year	Study design	Study population	Type of intervention	Results	Evidence level
Matsumura, Zavorsky, & Smoliga, 2015	Double‐ blind, randomized placebo‐controlled trial.	Twenty Non‐weight trained partecipants allocated in two groups. (a) Intervention group: n = 10 (5F, 5 M); aged 32 ± 9 years. (b) Placebo group: N = 10 (5F, 5 M); 27 ± 5 years.	Zingiber officinale roscoe (4 g) once daily for 5 days.	Four gram of ginger supplementation may be used to accelerate recovery of muscle strength following intense exercise but does not influence indicators of muscle damage (DOMS).	Level IB
Manimmanakorn et al., 2016	Double‐ blind, randomized placebo‐controlled trial.	Seventy‐five healthy untrained volunteers (47F, 28 M), aged 18–60 years, allocated in three groups. (a) 14% Plai cream: n = 25 (15F, 10 M); aged 28.7 ± 13.7 years. (b) 7% Plai cream: n = 25 (16F, 9 M); aged 31.3 ± 16.7 years. (c) Placebo group: n = 25 (16F, 9 M); aged 26.2 ± 12.0 years.	Zingiber cassumunar: 2 g of the cream (strips of 5‐cm long) were rubbed into the quadriceps muscles for 5 min immediately following the exercise and every 8 hr thereafter for 7 days in all groups.	Using 14% Plai cream over a 7‐day period substantially reduced muscle soreness symptoms compared to 7% Plai cream or a placebo cream.	Level IB
Black & O'Connor, 2008	Double blind crossover design	Twenty‐five participants (15F, 10 M) aged 23.2 ± 4.2 years.	Six capsules, for a total of 2 g of ground ginger or 2 g of flour (placebo), administered 30 min before cycling on an ergometer at an intensity of 60% of VO2peak, enough to stimulate mild to moderate quadreceps muscle pain.	Ginger exhibited no hypoalgesic effect on quadriceps pain intensity compared with placebo.	Level IIA
Black, Herring, Hurley, & O'Connor, 2010	Double‐ blind, randomized placebo‐controlled trial	Study 1: N = 34 allocated in two groups: (a) Raw ginger: n = 17 (14F, 3 M), aged 21.1 ± 0.7 years. (b) Placebo: n = 17 (14F, 3 M), aged 20.9 ± 0.6 years.	Six capsules, for a total of 2 g of raw or heated ginger or 2 g of placebo, all administered within 1 min, before performing 18 eccentric actions of the nondominant elbow flexors at an intensity of 120% of their concentric 1‐RM.	Raw and heat‐treated ginger resulted in similar pain reductions 24 hr after eccentric exercise compared to placebo.	Level IB
		Study 2: N = 40 allocated in two groups: (a) Heated ginger: n = 20 (13F, 7 M), aged 20.6 ± 0.6 years. (b) Placebo: n = 17 (13F, 7 M), aged 21.4 ± 0.8 years.