Simultaneous Upper- and Lower-Limb Postactivation Performance Enhancement After Clean and Jerk

Abstract

Studies on postactivation performance enhancement (PAPE) have used different exercises as a conditioning activity to investigate potentiation, but exclusively in upper limbs (UL) or lower (LL) limbs, or contralateral potentiation. A single exercise capable of inducing PAPE in both UL and LL is currently unknown. The present study explored the effect of the clean and jerk (C&J) as a conditioning activity for simultaneously producing PAPE interlimbs at the fourth, seventh, and 12th minutes postintervention. Twelve male weightlifters with 1-repetition maximum (1RM) in the C&J equivalent to ≥1.15 × body mass were randomly submitted to 2 experimental conditions (C&J and control [CON]). The C&J condition consisted of general warm-up (running on a treadmill and self-selected preparatory exercises) and 4 sets of 3 repetitions of C&J with 2 minutes between them (30%1RM, 50%1RM, 65%1RM, and 80%1RM) followed by a countermovement jump and a bench-press throw on a Smith machine after 4, 7, and 12 minutes, to measure the magnitude of PAPE in UL and LL. No previous exercise preceded countermovement-jump and bench-press-throw tests in the CON besides general warm-up. The main finding was that, regardless of time, the C&J resulted in greater height on countermovement jump and Smith machine bench-press throw when compared with the CON, presenting a similar effect size between UL and LL (34.6 [3.9] vs 33.4 [4.1] cm [+3.66%]; P = .038; effect size = 0.30 and 30.3 [4.7] vs 29.0 [5.1] cm [+4.44%]; P = .039; effect size = 0.26), respectively. Thus, C&J can be useful to produce PAPE simultaneously among members.