No acute differences in anaerobic performance following autoregulated vs non-autoregulated blood flow restricted resistance exercise

This study aimed to investigate the acute effects of autoregulated and non-autoregulated blood flow restricted resistance exercise on Wingate anaerobic performance test metrics. Fifteen recreationally active male individuals (age: 19.67 ± 1.54 years; height: 179.3 ± 7.65 cm; weight: 76.04 ± 13.97 kg) were involved in the study. Subjects performed Wingate anaerobic tests before the experimental session and data were recorded as baseline measurements. Then, a randomised counterbalanced crossover design was adopted to compare the acute effects of autoregulated and non-autoregulated BFR by performing back squat exercise (40% 1RM, 4x15 reps). After completing the back squat exercise, subjects rested for fifteen minutes and performed Wingate anaerobic performance tests with resistance of 7.5% body mass. GraphPad Prism 10 was used to analyse the data. Significance was set at p < 0.05. No significant difference was found in Peak Power (W) F(2,42):0.1509, p:0.86, pη2:0.007 and Average Power (W) F(2,42):0.0014, p:0.99, pη2:0.00006 between conditions. No significant difference was found in Fatigue Index (%) F(2,42):0.9396, p:0.39, pη2:0.0042 and Power Drop(W) F(2,42):0.5860, p:0.56, pη2:0.027 between conditions. This study suggests that performing both autoregulated and non-autoregulated BFR did not show significant differences between the two conditions and compared to baseline test results. It should be noted that our study only looked at autoregulation in one specific device. Therefore, findings should be interpreted with caution, as they may not be representative of other BFR systems that use autoregulation modes.