Effect of blood flow restriction on leg extension exercise on post activation potentiation in countermovement jump performance/standing broad jump performance

Abstract

Purpose: Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) has been proven to be structurally similar to resistance training for hypertrophy adaptations, with some studies stating neural adaptations are also involved (Centner & Lauber, 2020). This study investigated the effects of low-load blood flow restriction (LL BFR) on post activation performance enhancement (PAPE). The hypothesis of this study is as follows: The LL BFR effect on the leg extension would result in an increased countermovement jump height and increased standing broad jump distance Methods: 28 healthy male students performed two sessions of leg extension exercise, with and without the occlusion band, with a total of 75 repetitions at around 25%-35% of the 1 repetition maximum (1RM) followed by a randomized sequence of standing broad jump (SBJ) or countermovement jump (CMJ) first, followed by the other. Participants were further randomized into 2 groups, one group performed the leg extension exercise with bands first, and the other without bands first. The BFR bands were placed with a perceived tightness of about 7 out of 10. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze the results. Results: Performing the leg extension exercise with and without the occlusion band yielded non-significant differences in the performance of both the CMJ (p=0.066>0.05), and the SBJ (p=0.971>0.05). Conclusion: The BFR band had no significant effect on PAPE of the general male population on the countermovement jump height and standing broad jump distance after performing a high number of repetitions of the low-load leg extension exercise. Thus, LL BFR should not be used on leg extensions for PAPE.