Tart Cherry for Post-Exercise Soreness Reduction

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the ache that peaks a day or two after hard or unfamiliar exercise. Tart cherry is one of the most studied foods for it, and the honest answer is a split one. Hill and colleagues pooled 14 studies in 2021 and found a small reduction in soreness (effect size -0.44, 95% CI -0.87 to -0.02). A 2026 network meta-analysis of 30 trials found tart cherry was the only polyphenol supplement that lowered soreness at 24, 48 and 72 hours (Xu 2026).

Against that, Daab and colleagues (2026) pooled 19 trials in trained athletes and found no significant effect on soreness, and a 2025 meta-analysis of 10 trials found no change in pain scores (Dehghani 2025). Tart cherry's more reliable effect is on strength coming back, which our tart cherry for post-workout recovery page covers.

Hard eccentric work, long races and repeated sprints damage muscle fibres. The inflammatory and oxidative response that follows is one driver of soreness. Tart cherries are rich in anthocyanins and other polyphenols with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

Several trials saw that response dampened: IL-6 was attenuated in semi-professional soccer players (Bell 2016), IL-6 and CRP were lower in marathon runners (Howatson 2010), and hs-CRP was lower after a marathon in a 2026 trial (Squires 2026). A meta-analysis also found small reductions in CRP and IL-6 (Hill 2021).

Lower inflammation did not reliably mean less pain. In the 2026 marathon trial, hs-CRP fell but soreness did not differ (Squires 2026), and in the earlier marathon study inflammation fell while soreness was unchanged (Howatson 2010). Creatine kinase, the usual blood marker of muscle damage, did not change in the meta-analyses (Hill 2021; Dehghani 2025), so tart cherry does not appear to prevent the damage itself.

Trials that lowered soreness loaded tart cherry before the exercise. Runners drank 355 mL of juice twice a day for 7 days before a relay race and on race day (Kuehl 2010). Soccer players took 30 mL of Montmorency concentrate twice a day for 8 days, with the exercise on day 5 (Bell 2016). Resistance-trained men took 480 mg of powder once a day for 10 days around a squat session (Levers 2015).

A systematic review of 25 studies found benefits were likelier when supplementation started some days before the damage, lasted at least 8 to 10 days in total, and supplied at least 1,000 mg of phenolics a day (Ortega 2021). The International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) suggests 480 mg of powder or 60-90 mL of juice a day for 7 to 14 days (Gonzalez 2026).

Hill and colleagues (2021) pooled 14 studies: soreness fell slightly (ES -0.44) and strength recovered faster (ES -0.78). Xu and colleagues (2026) compared eight polyphenol supplements across 30 trials and 595 people; only pomegranate and tart cherry reduced soreness at 48 hours, and only tart cherry also did so at 24 and 72 hours. The authors judged the certainty of evidence generally low and saw these supplements as targeted options for soreness rather than for recovery as a whole.

Daab and colleagues (2026) limited their analysis to 19 trials in trained athletes and found no pooled effect on soreness, with certainty very low to moderate. Dehghani and colleagues (2025) pooled 10 trials and found no change in pain scores, though strength improved. A wider meta-analysis of polyphenol-rich foods reduced soreness at 24 to 72 hours, but the effect shrank when high risk of bias studies were removed (Rickards 2021).

In a double-blind trial of 54 runners covering about 26 km in a 24-hour relay, pain rose by 12 mm on a 100 mm scale with tart cherry versus 37 mm with placebo (p < .001) (Kuehl 2010). In 14 men doing eccentric arm exercise, pain was lower with cherry juice (p = 0.017), though muscle tenderness was not (Connolly 2006).

Soreness ratings were lower in 16 semi-professional soccer players after a simulated match (Bell 2016), and in one of two thigh muscles after heavy squats in 23 trained men (Levers 2015). A trial in 20 active women showed only a trend (p = 0.070) (Brown 2019), and one in 20 team-sport players found a soreness effect that post hoc tests could not place at any time point (Quinlan 2020).

Professional players after real matches saw no benefit: 10 soccer players (Abbott 2020), 10 rugby union players (Kupusarevic 2019) and 11 rugby league players (Morehen 2021). Soreness also did not differ in 20 marathon runners (Howatson 2010), in 35 marathon runners taking Vistula tart cherry powder (Squires 2026), in 36 untrained men doing eccentric arm work (Lamb 2019), or in 7 resistance-trained men (Drummer 2022).

Most of these trials were small, and match play caused only modest soreness in some of them, which leaves little room to show a difference. Still, the null results are too many to dismiss.

The ISSN position stand says regular training is the main way to build antioxidant defences, prefers whole foods, and reserves supplements for periods of high training stress (Gonzalez 2026). Other supplements on this site with soreness evidence include curcumin, omega-3 and whey protein.

Tart cherry is a food, and the soreness trials did not report problems. In a 3-month trial of 30 mL concentrate twice a day in 50 middle-aged adults, it was safe and well tolerated, with no harmful change in blood pressure, glucose or lipids (Kimble 2021).

Higher juice intakes are different. In 37 adults aged 65 to 80, 480 mL of juice a day for 12 weeks led to higher glucose, triglycerides and BMI than a control drink matched for energy and sugar (Chai 2018).

No formal drug interaction studies exist for tart cherry. Endurance athletes often take NSAIDs for pain, which carry a risk of side effects (Kuehl 2010), but tart cherry has not been tested with or against them. Juice lowered systolic blood pressure in older adults (Chai 2018), while concentrate did not change it in middle-aged adults (Kimble 2021).