Acute effects of maximal-effort isometric push-ups on upper-body ballistic performance in trained male athletes: A randomized crossover trial

Abstract 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 ( p = 0.006) and time ( p < 0.001), and an interaction effect ( p = 0.042) were observed. MBCT distance was greater in the experimental condition at 3 min compared with all other conditions ( p ≤ 0.004), whereas no difference was observed at 1 min. A moderate correlation was found between NPF and MBCT distance at 1 min ( r = 0.477, p = 0.045), but not at 3 min ( p > 0.05). NPF showed excellent reliability (lower-bound intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.937, coefficient of variation of 9.7%). 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.