The Elite Performance Enhancement You've Probably Never Heard Of

The study I participated in, led by Sam Halley and a team of researchers from the University of Western Australia, WAIS, and the Australian Institute of Sport, has now been published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

So what did they actually do to us?

In simple terms, they wrapped blood pressure cuffs around our upper thighs and inflated them to 220 mm Hg (that's tight) for 5 minutes, then released for 5 minutes, alternating between legs for a total of 40 minutes. This is called Ischemic Preconditioning (IPC) — temporarily restricting blood flow to your muscles and then allowing it to rush back.

The theory? This controlled stress primes your body to handle the subsequent stress of maximal exercise more efficiently.

We then completed two 1,000-metre kayak time-trials, separated by 80 minutes — simulating the gap between heats and semi-finals at international competition.

The key finding: athletes who received IPC before BOTH time-trials improved their completion times by 2.5-3.5% compared to the control group. That's 6-8 seconds in a 4-minute race. In elite sport, that's the difference between a medal and going home empty-handed.

Interestingly, a single IPC application only benefited the first time-trial. The effect appeared to "wash out" before the second effort. But when IPC was applied again between races, the benefits were reproduced.

What makes this fascinating is that these performance improvements came at no apparent physiological cost — oxygen consumption, blood lactate, and perceived exertion were all similar across conditions. The athletes simply went faster.

Out of respect for Sam Halley and the research team's tremendous work, I encourage you to access the full study rather than rely on my summary. The complete methodology, statistical analysis, and discussion deserve to be read in full.

The study is available through the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research for $47 USD.

Access it here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33065705/

Proud to have been a small part of this research.

— Grant Peace

Reference:
Halley, SL, Peeling, P, Brown, H, Sim, M, Mallabone, J, Dawson, B, and Binnie, MJ. Repeat application of ischemic preconditioning improves maximal 1,000-m kayak ergometer performance in a simulated competition format. J Strength Cond Res, 2020.