Tart cherry eases the ache but does not speed the repair

Hard or unfamiliar exercise damages muscle, and the aftermath is familiar: soreness that peaks a day or two later, a temporary dip in strength, and a rise in blood markers such as creatine kinase and C-reactive protein. That aftermath can blunt the next few sessions, which is why recovery supplements are a thriving market. Plant polyphenols, particularly anthocyanin-rich options like tart cherry and flavanol-rich alternatives, are among the most popular choices. What nobody had properly established is how these supplements compare with each other, and whether they help anything beyond how sore you feel.

The authors swept four major research databases from their inception to January 2026 for randomised controlled trials in healthy adults with acute exercise-induced muscle damage. Eligible trials compared plant-derived anthocyanin- or flavanol-rich supplements against placebo or control conditions. They then ran a network meta-analysis, a technique that ranks different supplements against each other even when they were never tested head to head. The primary outcomes were muscle soreness, muscle strength, creatine kinase and C-reactive protein at 48 hours after exercise, with 24 and 72 hour measures as secondary outcomes. Thirty trials covering 595 participants and eight supplement types made the cut.

Only pomegranate and tart cherry significantly reduced soreness at 48 hours compared with placebo, ranking first and second respectively. No supplement showed a clear advantage for muscle strength, creatine kinase or C-reactive protein at 48 hours. Tart cherry was the only supplement associated with significant soreness reduction at both 24 and 72 hours, giving it the most consistent pattern overall. Sensitivity analyses did not materially change the conclusions, although some estimates shifted with supplementation protocols and outcome definitions. The authors rated the certainty of the evidence as generally low.

Polyphenol supplements are often marketed as all-purpose recovery aids, and this analysis narrows that pitch considerably. It suggests their value, if any, sits in how sore you feel rather than in objective measures of muscle function or inflammation. That echoes a wider pattern in recovery research, where subjective and objective outcomes frequently part company. Open questions remain about optimal dosing, the influence of exercise type, and whether larger trials would firm up the strength and blood marker results. With certainty rated low, the rankings could still shuffle as evidence accumulates.

If you use tart cherry or pomegranate around hard sessions, this is a reason to expect less soreness rather than a faster return of strength. Feeling less sore is not nothing, since soreness can shape how willing you are to train again. But the pooled data give no grounds to believe these supplements speed the underlying repair, so judging them by how quickly performance returns would be judging them against something they did not deliver here. For everything beyond soreness, no supplement in this analysis separated itself from placebo.