Fig. 1

Experiment protocol. Four attention conditions, control, forward attention, monitor attention, and ankle joint attention, were randomly performed during the 10 min repetitive passive movement intervention. Experimental interventions were performed with an interval of at least 3 days between the conditions. In Experiment 1, the motor thresholds of the soleus muscle (Sol) maximum M wave amplitude and tibialis anterior muscle (TA) were measured before reciprocal inhibition (RI). RI was measured under three conditions [single, conditioning stimulation-test stimulation interval (CTI) 2 ms, CTI 20 ms]. The RI measurement was performed before the attention condition intervention (Pre), immediately after the intervention (Post), and 5 (Post 5), 10 (Post 10), 20 (Post 20), and 30 (Post 30) min after the intervention. In Experiment 2, after practicing ankle dorsiflexion movement, the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) of each muscle was measured to evaluate the joint movement function before performing the ankle movement task. The ankle joint movement task was performed three times before and after the intervention under the same attention conditions as Experiment 1 with a 10 s rest interval. Each session was rested for at least 5 min