How Does Blood-Flow Restriction Alter Forehand Drive Performance and Muscle Recruitment in Tennis Players?

Purpose: To examine the acute effects of forehand drive (FD) preconditioning with or without blood-flow restriction (BFR) on subsequent forehand performance and muscle recruitment in tennis.

Methods: On separate visits, 12 well-trained tennis players participated in 4 randomized trials. Each visit included pretests (maximal muscle-activation capacity or FD performance), a preconditioning phase, and posttests after 5 minutes of rest (ie, similar to pretests). The preconditioning phase involved 5 sets of 10 maximal-effort FD exercises, performed either with (EXP) or without (CON) BFR (50% of the arterial occlusion pressure applied to dominant lower and upper limbs). During the pretest and posttests, either maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) with surface electromyography recordings of 6 muscles (gastrocnemius, rectus femoris, biceps brachii, anterior deltoid, external oblique, and pectoralis major) or ball velocity and accuracy of 10 crosscourt forehands were assessed.

Results: Peak ball velocity increased from pretests to posttests (+2.3% [2.3%]; P = .004), regardless of the condition (P = .130). Peak ball accuracy remained unchanged (P > .05). From pretests to posttests, increases in electromyography levels for the biceps brachii muscle were larger for EXP (+14.5% [7.4%]; P < .001) than CON (+7.3% [10.3%]; P = .042). During the preconditioning phase, biceps brachii muscle activity was higher for EXP than CON (+7.4% [7.3%]; P = .006) during MVICs. Surface electromyography levels remained unchanged for other muscles.

Conclusion: Executing FD exercises during a preconditioning phase acutely improved FD velocity but not accuracy in tennis, also accompanied by increased recruitment of the biceps brachii muscle. However, adding BFR did not significantly enhance these benefits.