Intermittent Sequential Pneumatic Compression (ISPC) has become a popular recovery method among athletes, particularly in cycling. This randomized sham-controlled crossover trial aimed to assess the effectiveness of a 30-minute high-pressure ISPC intervention compared to a sham condition on the recovery of trained cyclists after a strenuous time trial.
The study involved twenty-one male participants, with an average age of 22.8 years. Each participant underwent a recovery protocol that was randomly assigned. Recovery measures included isometric knee extension, cycling performance during a 4-minute time trial, quadriceps low-frequency fatigue, creatine kinase levels, and subjective assessments of fatigue, recovery, and muscle soreness. Data were collected at baseline, 1 hour post-intervention, and at 24 and 48 hours post-exercise.
Results indicated that the use of ISPC led to improvements in subjective perceptions of recovery, muscle soreness, and fatigue, as well as in low-frequency fatigue scores and maximal voluntary contraction of knee extension. However, these benefits did not translate into improved cycling performance in subsequent time trials conducted 24 hours later. The performance metrics showed no significant enhancement, with a p-value of .18. Additionally, there was no relevant increase in creatine kinase activity following the fatigue protocol, suggesting that the physiological recovery markers did not significantly change.
In conclusion, while ISPC appears to enhance acute subjective and neuromuscular recovery markers following a strenuous cycling effort, it does not provide a performance advantage in subsequent short-duration cycling tasks conducted 24 hours later. Nonetheless, the use of ISPC may still be justified for accelerating perceptual and neuromuscular recovery in high-level cyclists.
What this study does not show
This study does not demonstrate that ISPC leads to improved performance in subsequent cycling trials, despite some subjective and neuromuscular recovery benefits.
Evidence scorecard
- Analytic validity: established
- Clinical validity: established
- Clinical utility: partial
The evidence is based on a randomized controlled trial involving human participants.