NY Times article about ibuprofen use and exercise

[Possegal]

It is not a muscle relaxant, it is an anti-inflammatory, pain reliever and anti-pyretic. But you are right, someone likely thought they would make it easier to understand and then actually gave you incorrect information. I've been a Dr of Pharmacology for (oh dear lord, 17 yrs) and it has never been thought to be a muscle relaxant in any of that time. They were probably trying to explain why it is better for menstrual cramps than other NSAIDs, but I don't recall ever reading anywhere why that is, just that we know it to be so. Which is not uncommon with our knowledge of drugs.

The original article talked about here, does not give a sample of the questionnaire and although they say they asked about prior history, subjects were put into the groups based on use the day before and day of the race. I guess you could argue that the subjects that used ibuprofen would have been people that normally used it, but not sure you can tell that from the publication (and there are several papers that seem to have come out of this study).