Introduction
displeasure/pleasure, hypertrophy
HYPERTROPHY
During the last decades, sport climbing has gained increased interest among both practitioners and scientists. Climbing performance depends on multiple components such as anthropometric-, physiological-, psychological- and technical factorsBlood flow restriction (BFR) training has shown comparable chronic effects in hypertrophy and strength as traditional heavy resistance trainingImportantly, the mechanical load normally used in BFR training is considerably lower (i.e. 20–50% of 1 repetition maximum (RM)) compared to heavy resistance training (70–85% of 1-RM)The willingness to continue with a physical activity and training likely depends on how the activity is perceivedTo our knowledge, there have been no studies comparing the acute effects of climbing specific finger flexor resistance training conducted with BFR against low and heavy load free flow training. It would be of great practical and scientific interest to examine how the different conditions influence training volume, physiological responses (e.g. lactate and oxygen saturation) and different affective measures, such as effort, discomfort, session displeasure/pleasure and exercise enjoyment among active advanced level climbers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the acute affective, physiological and training volume effects of conducting finger flexor training with either high intensity (High), low intensity with BFR (Low + BFR) or low intensity without BFR (Low). We hypothesized that conducting Low + BFR would lead to (i) a reduced exercise volume compared to Low, but similar to High, (ii) greater perception of discomfort compared to training without BFR, (iii) being less enjoyable and more displeasing than training without BFR, and (iv) lower oxygen saturation but greater lactate accumulation compared to training without BFR. Further, we hypothesized no difference in perception of effort between the sessions, but that the Low would be more discomforting than the High session.