Influence of Fatiguing Warm-Up Exercises on Speed of Movement and Reaction Latency

Abstract Related warm-up exercise of moderate intensity failed to improve arm speed in a large muscle criterion movement, while heavy but non-related warm-up exercise did improve the speed by 16 percent. Three groups, each consisting of 25 male college students, were measured under both test and control conditions. Neither of the warm-up exercises influenced reaction latency. The correlation between RT and MT scores was non-significant (r = .17). For the heavy exercise (stool-stepping), highly reliable individual differences were observed in stepping rate drop-off before fatigue (r = .93) and after 37 percent fatigue (r = .98), but the two types of drop-off scores were not significantly correlated (r = -.24). In the arm action warm-up exercise, the correlation between initial rate of movement and rate at 24 percent fatigue was non-significant (r = .08).