Abstract
Objectives
To determine the effects of “strides” with a weighted-vest during a warm-up on endurance
performance and its potential neuromuscular and metabolic mediators.
A bout of resistance exercise can enhance subsequent high-intensity performance, but
little is known about such priming exercise for endurance performance.
Design
A crossover with 5–7 days between an experimental and control trial was performed
by 11 well-trained distance runners.
Methods
Each trial was preceded by a warm-up consisting of a 10-min self-paced jog, a 5-min
submaximal run to determine running economy, and six 10-s strides with or without
a weighted-vest (20% of body mass). After a 10-min recovery period, runners performed
a series of jumps to determine leg stiffness and other neuromuscular characteristics,
another 5-min submaximal run, and an incremental treadmill test to determine peak
running speed. Clinical and non-clinical forms of magnitude-based inference were used
to assess outcomes. Correlations and linear regression were used to assess relationships
between performance and underlying measures.
Results
The weighted-vest condition resulted in a very-large enhancement of peak running speed
(2.9%; 90% confidence limits ±0.8%), a moderate increase in leg stiffness (20.4%;
±4.2%) and a large improvement in running economy (6.0%; ±1.6%); there were also small-moderate
clear reductions in cardiorespiratory measures. Relationships between change scores
showed that changes in leg stiffness could explain all the improvements in performance
and economy.
Conclusions
Strides with a weighted-vest have a priming effect on leg stiffness and running economy.
It is postulated the associated major effect on peak treadmill running speed will
translate into enhancement of competitive endurance performance.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 27, 2014
Accepted:
December 13,
2013
Received in revised form:
December 5,
2013
Received:
June 24,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
