Introduction
fatigue
The post-activation performance enhancement (PAPE) effect refers to the temporary improvement in muscular performance following the completion of high-intensity exercise. In practice, the PAPE effect is elicited by the use of a conditioning activity (CA) (i.e., back squat) which precedes a biomechanically similar fast dynamic activity (i.e., vertical jump) [A large number of studies attempted to induce PAPE using bilateral CAs, despite the fact that a majority of motor tasks in sports are performed unilaterally, although the assumption is that the movement pattern of the CA and the subsequent exercise should be comparable [The mentioned non-localized manner of the PAPE effect might be seen as a benefit and a way to strategically and individually tailor potentiation techniques. For instance, practicing CA just on a weaker limb could be a way to significantly minimize the inter-limb strength asymmetries during following athletic tasks. Strength asymmetries would seem to have a harmful impact on sport performance tasks, such as change of direction and sport-specific abilities and jumping. Therefore, attempting to acutely reduce inter-limb asymmetries might be advantageous for improving athletic performance. In this case, the CAs may only be carried out on the limb that is weaker in order to significantly reduce asymmetry during the following task. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study to date investigated how unilateral CA affects inter-limb asymmetry.The highest PAPE effect tends to occur 5–7 min after low-volume CA (1–3 sets and low repetition range ≤5) utilizing high-intensity exercises (>85% one-repetition maximum [1RM] or plyometric). The disadvantages of unilateral exercises, on the other hand, include higher balancing demands than those of bilateral movements, and as a consequence might induce a higher degree of fatigue. Due to this, employing unilateral CAs may not be the best approach when following the current guidelines for potentiation complexes. Notably, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, only three investigations [