The effect of prior upper body exercise on subsequent wingate performance.

Marie Clare Grant,Robert Robergs,Marianne Findlay Baird,Julien S Baker

doi:10.1155/2014/329328

Abstract

It has been reported previously that the upper body musculature is continually active during high intensity cycle ergometry. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of prior upper body exercise on subsequent Wingate (WAnT) performance. Eleven recreationally active males (20.8 ± 2.2 yrs; 77.7 ± 12.0 kg; 1.79 ± 0.04 m) completed two trials in a randomised order. In one trial participants completed 2 × 30 s WAnT tests (WAnT1 and WAnT2) with a 6 min recovery period; in the other trial, this protocol was preceded with 4 sets of biceps curls to induce localised arm fatigue. Prior upper body exercise was found to have a statistically significant detrimental effect on peak power output (PPO) during WAnT1 (P < 0.05) but no effect was observed for mean power output (MPO) (P > 0.05). Handgrip (HG) strength was also found to be significantly lower following the upper body exercise. These results demonstrate that the upper body is meaningfully involved in the generation of leg power during intense cycling.

Highlights

High intensity cycle ergometry has been widely employed in sport and exercise science research to assess indices of muscular performance [1, 2]
Peak power produced in WAnT1 was lower in the arm fatigue (ARF) protocol compared to no arm fatigue (NOF) protocol (P < 0.01, rdf = 0.75); no significant interaction was found (P > 0.05)
No significant differences were found in FI (%) for TEST or TRIAL (P > 0.05) (NOF: 57.0 ± 10.5% and 57.8 ± 10.7% for WAnT1 and WAnT2, respectively, ARF: 57.3 ± 9.9% and 59.1 ± 9.6% for WAnT1 and WAnT2)

Summary

Introduction

High intensity cycle ergometry has been widely employed in sport and exercise science research to assess indices of muscular performance [1, 2]. Among these power variables, the measurement of PPO has received considerable interest. With the current cycle ergometer design, evidence suggests that the forearm muscles and the handlebar grip are influential to overcome high resistive loads to produce an optimum PPO. This is supported by the findings of Baker et al (2001) [2]

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