Study design
cardiac and pulmonary maximum
After the initial pre-examination, all participants completed three experimental sessions involving standardized squats on a smith machine (Technogym Germany GmbH, Germany) over a three-week period. To standardize the training sessions, the individual three-repetition-maximum at 50%, 62.5% and 75% were used. The pre-examination included medical history, lifestyle questionnaire (physical activity, smoking, and alcohol consumption), incremental exercise test (IET), and bioelectrical impedance analysis (Bioimpedance Analyzer BIACORPUS RX 4004 M, MEDI CAL HealthCare GmbH, Germany). The participants performed an incremental exercise test (IET) to exhaustion to determine maximum power output (Pmax), cardiac and pulmonary maximum values.All participants performed three load conditions on separate days at the same time with a break lasting at least 5 days to ensure adequate recovery. On the first strength training session, the individual 3-repetition maximum (3-RM) after a warm-up period was determined via the approximation method, which corresponds to the maximum amount of weight lifted in clean execution for three repetitions in the smith machine. The 3-RM tests followed the ACSM guidelines for 1-RM tests