Does caffeine ingestion affect the lower-body post-activation performance enhancement in female volleyball players?

Post-activation performance enhancement (PAPE) is a physiological phenomenon that acutely improves voluntary muscular performance following a conditioning activity. A large and growing body of literature has investigated different strategies to induce a PAPE stimulus; however, little attention has been given to whether acute caffeine ingestion could augment the effect of PAPE on subsequent performance. This study evaluated the acute effects of caffeine ingestion and back squat conditioning activity on subsequent countermovement jump (CMJ) performance in female semi-professional volleyball players.

Fourteen resistance-trained female volleyball players (26 ± 3 years) performed 3 different testing conditions in randomized order: where each ingested 6 mg/kg of caffeine (CAF) or placebo (PLAC) and performed a single set of back squats at 80%1RM until mean movement velocity dropped by 10% as the conditioning activity or a control (CTRL) condition where participants did not ingest any supplement and did not perform the conditioning activity. CMJ height was examined at baseline and in 2 min intervals until 10 min postconditioning activity. Furthermore, due to the wide inter-individual variation in optimal recovery time of PAPE response, the baseline and best post-conditioning activity performance were also analyzed.

The Friedman test revealed a significant difference in jump height within CTRL (p = 0.002) and CAF (p = 0.001) conditions, but no significant difference was found within the PAP condition. The post hoc showed a significant decrease in jump height in 8^th min in CTRL condition (p = 0.022, effect size [ES] = -0.31), a significant increase in jump height in 2^nd min in CAF condition (p = 0.013, ES = 0.3), without differences in PLAC condition in comparison to baseline values. Moreover, a significant jump height increases from baseline to best performance post conditioning activity value for CAF (p = 0.001, ES = 0.39) and PLAC (p = 0.001, ES = 0.3) condition, but no significant difference was found for the CTRL condition.

The single set of heavy-loaded back squats with controlled velocity used as a conditioning activity in the current study enhanced subsequent CMJ performance in female volleyball players with no additional effect of caffeine.