Acute effects of maximal-effort isometric push-ups on upper-body ballistic performance in trained male athletes: A randomized crossover trial
Premraj Saini, Tim S Babu, Amritashish Bagchi, Rohit K ThapaAbstract
Background
Maximal effort conditioning activities, such as pushing isometric muscle action (PIMA) based push-ups, may acutely improve ballistic performance via the post-activation performance enhancement (PAPE) mechanism. The primary aim was to examine the effects of PIMA-based push-ups as a conditioning activity on medicine ball chest throw (MBCT) distance. The secondary aims were to determine the relationship between net peak force (NPF) produced during the PIMA push-up and MBCT distance, and assess the reliability of NPF measurement.
Methods
Eighteen male athletes were randomly assigned to a control (general warm-up) or an experimental condition (general warm-up + PIMA-based push-ups [3 × 5 s with 1-min rest]) in a crossover design. MBCT performance was assessed after 1 and 3-min of recovery following each condition.
Results
A significant main effect of condition (
Conclusion
PIMA-based push-ups may be used as a conditioning activity to potentiate upper-body muscle power (specifically for MBCT), and both exercises may be paired as an upper-body contrast-training exercise during complex-contrast training sessions. However, long-term adaptations of such a combination in a complex-contrast training format require further investigation.