Abstract
This study evaluated the effects of ischemic conditioning on power output and bar velocity in the bench press exercise. Ten healthy males (age: 25 +/- 2 years; body mass: 92 +/- 8 kg; bench press one repetition maximum -1RM: 145 +/- 13 kg), took part in two experimental sessions (with and without ischemia), 1 week apart in random and counterbalanced order.
In the ischemic condition, cuffs placed around the upper part of the arms were inflated to 80% of arterial occlusion pressure before each set, while in the control condition there was no blood flow restriction. The exercise protocol included 5 sets of three repetitions each, against a resistance equal to 60% 1RM, with 5 min recovery intervals between sets.
There was a main effect of condition for mean power output (MP) and mean bar velocity (MV) (p = 0.01), with overall MP being higher in ischemia than in control by 5.6 +/- 4.1% (mean +/- 90% compatibility limits), a standardized effect size (ES) of 0.51. Overall MV was also higher by 5.5 +/- 4.0%, ES = 0.63.
Peak power output (PP) and peak bar velocity (PV) were similar in set 1 of the control and ischemia condition (1039 +/- 105 vs. 1054 +/- 82 W; 684 +/- 74 vs. 696 +/- 53 W; 1.09 +/- 0.07 vs. 1.12 +/- 0.09 m/s; 0.81 +/- 0.05 vs. 0.82 +/- 0.05 m/s, p = 0.67 to 0.99, mean +/- standard deviation). However, from set 3 onward (p = 0.03 to 0.001), PP and PV were higher in ischemia compared with control, with the highest difference observed in set 5 (10.9 +/- 5.9%, ES = 0.73 for PP and 8.6 +/- 4.6%; ES = 0.89 for PV).
These results indicate that ischemia used before each set of the bench press exercise increases power output and bar velocity and this may be used as performance-enhancing stimulus during explosive resistance training.