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The effect of a 4-week, remotely administered, post-exercise passive leg heating intervention on determinants of endurance performance
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

The effect of a 4-week, remotely administered, post-exercise passive leg heating intervention on determinants of endurance performance

Kevin John, Joe Page, Shane M. Heffernan, Gillian E. Conway, Neil E. Bezodis, Liam P. Kilduff, Brad Clark, Julien D. Periard and Mark Waldron
European Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol.124, pp.3631-3647
2024
PMCID: PMC11569002
PMID: 39052044
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s00421-024-05558-42.09 MBDownloadView
Published Version Open Access CC BY V4.0

Abstract

post exercise passive leg heating endurance performance temperate
Purpose Post-exercise passive heating has been reported to augment adaptations associated with endurance training. The current study evaluated the effect of a 4-week remotely administered, post-exercise passive leg heating protocol, using an electrically heated layering ensemble, on determinants of endurance performance. Methods Thirty recreationally trained participants were randomly allocated to either a post-exercise passive leg heating (PAH, n = 16) or unsupervised training only control group (CON, n = 14). The PAH group wore the passive heating ensemble for 90–120 min/day, completing a total of 20 (16 post-exercise and 4 stand-alone leg heating) sessions across 4 weeks. Whole-body (peak oxygen uptake, gas exchange threshold, gross efficiency and pulmonary oxygen uptake kinetics), single-leg exercise (critical torque and NIRS-derived muscle oxygenation), resting vascular characteristics (flow-mediated dilation) and angiogenic blood measures (nitrate, vascular endothelial growth factor and hypoxia inducible factor 1−α) were recorded to characterize the endurance phenotype. All measures were assessed before (PRE), at 2 weeks (MID) and after (POST) the intervention. Results There was no effect of the intervention on test of whole-body endurance capacity, vascular function or blood markers (p > 0.05). However, oxygen kinetics were adversely affected by PAH, denoted by a slowing of the phase II time constant; τ (p = 0.02). Furthermore, critical torque–deoxygenation ratio was improved in CON relative to PAH (p = 0.03). Conclusion We have demonstrated that PAH had no ergogenic benefit but instead elicited some unfavourable effects on sub-maximal exercise characteristics in recreationally trained individuals.

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