## 4 Discussion
Additionally, our study did not observe differences between resistance training protocols regarding squat velocity performance. These results align with a recent study by [PERSON] et al. [5], where the authors observed that performing the bench press first did not affect subsequent power production during the squat exercise. Therefore, performing three sets of six repetitions at 80% of one's 1 RM bench press does not seem to influence subsequent squat velocity performance. This is not entirely consistent with previous research, which indicated that performing an exercise last in a sequence may have a negative impact [24]. Inconsistent findings exist, as [PERSON] et al. [29] showed that performing the bench press before the leg press induced less fatigue in the latter exercise than in the opposite order. Usually, the second exercise in a sequence would be expected to show more fatigue due to non-local muscle fatigue, which can impair the performance of muscles that have not yet been exercised [30]. This could be explained by mechanisms like central nervous system inhibition, which involves reduced neural drive to the muscles, and psychological factors such as decreased motivation or focus after performing a fatiguing exercise [31]. However, the greater balance of excitatory mechanisms over fatiguing ones might explain the non-impact of exercise order in the literature as well as in the current study [29,32]. We expected that the previous exercise would cause some post-activation potentiation enhancement (PAPE) [33,34] in the following exercise. However, while these strategies can improve performance in certain situations [33,34], it seems that this did not occur in our study. On the contrary, it seems the fatigue from the squat exercise outweighs any potentiation effects, thereby impairing bench press performance. Performing power exercises like the squat first can sometimes enhance subsequent exercise performance due to post-activation potentiation mechanisms. However, when the initial exercise inducessignificant fatigue, the negative effects of fatigue outweigh the benefits [35]. It is known that the effectiveness of the PAPE protocols depends on several variables (e.g., the specific sport, the timing of the conditioning activity, and the athlete's characteristics) [33]. For example, the specificity of the conditioning activity is essential for maximizing subsequent exercise [33]. This way, the bench press cannot be understood as specific for the squat, and vice versa, as each exercise targets different muscle groups and movement patterns. According to our second hypothesis, higher blood lactate and heart rate responses would be observed immediately after the session with the squat performed as the last exercise (i.e., \(\text{BP}+\text{S}\) protocol). As the squat exercise performed with heavy loads (i.e., three sets of eight maximum repetitions) induces higher metabolic and hemodynamic stress than the bench press [6], we expected to observe a higher response immediately after the session. However, our results did not confirm this hypothesis. Previous findings suggested that no clear results exist regarding the influence of exercise order on other physiological responses [36]. Performing the squat first and then the bench press resulted in non-significantly higher metabolic and hemodynamic changes compared to the reverse order. This result may be related to a greater accumulation of fatigue at the beginning of the resistance training session, which was maintained with the subsequent performance of the bench press. Therefore, the present results highlight a possible higher metabolic and hemodynamic demand when the squat is performed first in a resistance training session with the maximal intended velocity. The literature underscores the significance of exercise order in resistance training, particularly in long-term adaptations [3; 36; 37].