The Effects of Active and Passive Recovery on Short-Term, High Intensity Power Output

Abstract

The advantage of active over passive recovery from long and intermediate duration exercise is well documented. Success has been attributed to metabolite washout and/or lactate (La) utilization by the active musculature. This study was designed to determine whether active recovery was superior to passive rest during short duration, high intensity performance. On 4 separate days, six athletes performed a set of eight 6-s power tests separated by 30-s recovery intervals under two recovery conditions. Recovery conditions involved either sitting passively on the bike (P) or actively pedaling (A) at 60 rpm using 1 kg resistance. A MANOVA on peak power (PP), fatigue rate (F), and total work (TW) showed a significant difference due to recovery condition, F(3, 169); p < .0001. Separate ANOVAs revealed that PP (A = 1192.85 watts, P = 1134.57 watts; p < .0001) and TW (A = 6.59 kJ, P = 6.23 kJ; p < .0001) differed significantly between conditions. No difference was found for F (A = 80.12 watts.sec-1, P = 79.80 watts.sec-1). Results indicate that active recovery provides superior performance to passive rest in repeated short-term, high intensity power activities.

Effects of Recovery Mode on Performance, O2 Uptake, and O2 Deficit During High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise

“…Active recovery has been reported to allow better performance than passive recovery during repeated all-out efforts (Bogdanis et al, 1996b;Signorile et al, 1993;Weltman et al, 1977), as well as during high-intensity intermittent exercise performed, like in this study, at a constant supramaximal intensity (Thiriet et al, 1993). It seems that active recovery has no effect on subsequent exercise performance when subjects are exhausted in approximately 5 min (Weltman and Regan, 1983;Weltman et al, 1979).…”

“…It seems that active recovery has no effect on subsequent exercise performance when subjects are exhausted in approximately 5 min (Weltman and Regan, 1983;Weltman et al, 1979). In contrast, active recovery improves power output when performed between sprints lasting 6 to 60 sec (Bogdanis et al, 1996b;Signorile et al, 1993;Weltman et al, 1977).…”

“…However, it has been hypothesized that it can accelerate lactate and H + elimination (Signorile et al, 1993) and potassium clearance (Bangsbo et al, 1994), and promote the resynthesis of PCr (Yoshida et al, 1996). Despite the fact that active recovery markedly enhances leg blood flow, neither lactate (Bangsbo et al, 1994;Saltin et al, 1992) nor H + (Bangsbo et al, 1994) transport from the muscle to the extracellular space appear to be significantly increased.…”

Performance for short intermittent runs: active recovery vs. passive recovery

“…Numerous studies have shown that active recovery enhances lactate removal in comparison with passive recovery (Bonen and Belcastro 1976;Gupta et al 1996;Taoutaou et al 1996). Moreover, Signorile et al (1993) showed that active recovery provides superior performance to passive recovery when 6-s all-out exercise bouts interspersed by 30-s recovery periods are repeated. Accordingly, a 4-min period of active recovery, as opposed to passive recovery, enabled an increase in power output when a 30-s sprint was repeated (Bogdanis et al 1996).…”

Recovery After High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise in Elite Soccer Players Using VEINOPLUS Sport Technology for Blood-Flow Stimulation

“…A low-intensity, repetitive mechanical contraction-relaxation muscle cycle may increase local and total blood flow, translocation, and removal of metabolites and reduce intracellular fluid volume. 24 However, using electric muscle stimulation to increase blood flow for exercise recovery has been ineffective despite the emergence of new devices that significantly improved total blood flow and venous return. [25][26][27][28][29] Therefore, we hypothesized that such a device applied to the calf muscles could result in faster restoration in performance and reduce the amount of muscle damage markers after fatiguing exercise.…”