Ergogenic effect of ischemic preconditioning is not directly conferred to isolated skeletal muscle via blood

Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) in humans has been demonstrated to confer ergogenic benefit to aerobic exercise performance, with an improvement in the response rate when the IPC stimulus is combined with concurrent exercise. Despite potential performance improvements, the nature of the neuronal and humoral mechanisms of conferral and their respective contributions to ergogenic benefit remain unclear. We sought to examine the effects of the humoral component of ischemic preconditioning on skeletal muscle tissue using preconditioned human serum and isolated mouse soleus.

Isolated mouse soleus was electrically stimulated to contract while in human serum preconditioned with either traditional (IPC) or augmented (AUG) ischemic preconditioning compared to control (CON) and exercise (ERG) preconditioning. Force frequency (FF) curves, twitch responses, and a fatigue-recovery protocol were performed on muscles before and after the addition of serum. After preconditioning, human participants performed a 4 km cycling time trial in order to identify responders and non-responders to IPC.

No differences in indices of contractile function, fatiguability, nor recovery were observed between conditions in mouse soleus muscles. Further, no human participants improved performance in a 4-km cycling time trial in response to traditional nor augmented ischemic preconditioning compared to control or exercise conditions (CON 407.7 ± 41.1 s, IPC 411.6 ± 41.9 s, ERG 408.8 ± 41.4 s, AUG 414.1 ± 41.9 s).

Our findings do not support the conferral of ergogenic benefit via a humoral component of IPC at the intracellular level. Ischemic preconditioning may not manifest prominently at submaximal exercise intensities, and augmented ischemic preconditioning may have a hormetic relationship with performance improvements.