## 4 Discussion  
This study tested the hypothesis, in two variants of the PBP exercise, that lifting more than two loads (multiple-point method) in the testing procedure of the L-V relationship would cause fatigue, manifested in a lower magnitude of the L-V relationship variables in comparison with lifting only two loads (two-point method). The main findings of the present study revealed that the L-V relationship variables were as follows: (i) slightly greater for the two-point method compared with the multiple-point method, (ii) comparable between the concentric-only and eccentric-concentric PBP variants, and (iii) highly correlated between both methods and PBP variants. These results suggest that, regardless of the PBP variant, the testing procedure of the L-V relationship variables should be based on lifting only two loads because the addition of intermediate loads slightly decreases their magnitude. Supporting our first hypothesis, the two-point method reported significantly higher L-V relationship variables than the multiple-point method. These results are in contrast with [PERSON] et al. [5], who observed comparable L-V relationship variables between the multiple-point and two-point methods obtained during countermovement-jump exercise when a heavy squat load was included or excluded from the modelling (\(p\geq 0.168\); ES \(\leq 0.04\)). Notably, the lack of statistical significance could be owing to the two-point method data being extracted from the multiple-point testing procedure. However, our results are in agreement with [PERSON] et al. [12] who, during leg cycling exercise, observed a significantly lower maximum power for the multiple-point method compared with the two-point method applied in field conditions (\(p=0.041\); ES \(=0.36\)) due to a decrease in maximum force (\(p=0.039\); ES \(=0.41\)) but not in \(v_{0}\) (\(p=0.570\); ES \(=-0.15\)). While [PERSON] et al. [12] evaluated the multiple-point and two-point methods following an incremental loading test on separate days, in the present study two intermediate loads were measured after the two distant loads to evaluate both methods within the same session. It seems logical to speculate that the three L-V relationship variables were compromised in the present study by fatigue induced during the standard testing procedure based on multiple loads [12; 25]. The L-V relationship in the PBP exercise was used in the present study to provide novel evidence supporting the two-point method as a simpler, quicker, and less fatigue-inducing strategy for determining maximum neuro-muscular capacities. Our second hypothesis was also rejected since the L-V relationship variables were comparable between the concentric-only and eccentric-concentric PBP variants. These results contradict those of [PERSON] et al. [20], who reported a steeper L-V relationship (i.e., higher velocities across the full range of loads) for the eccentric-concentric bench  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline \ \begin{tabular}{c} **L-V** \\ **Relationship** \\ **Variable** \\ \end{tabular}  & \multirow{2}{*}{**Method**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**PBP Variant**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**ANOVA**} \\ \cline{3-6}  & & **Concentric-Only** & \begin{tabular}{c} **Eccentric-** \\ **Concentric** \\ \end{tabular}  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Main Effects**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Interaction**} \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{\(L_{0}\) (kg)} & Multiple-point & \(105\pm 15\)[78; 79; 80; 81; 82; 83; 84; 85; 86; 87; 88; 89; 90; 91; 92; 93; 94; 95; 96; 97; 98; 99; 100; 101; 102; 103; 104; 105; 106; 107; 108; 109; 110; 111; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 120; 121; 122;press variant compared with the concentric-only bench press variant due to the use of the stretch-shortening cycle. However, it is important to note that the barbell kinematics and kinetics greatly differ between the bench press and PBP exercises because of the different architecture of the muscles involved in these tasks [13].