A cognitive task, deep breathing, and static stretching reduce variability of motor evoked potentials during subsequent transcranial magnetic stimulation

[Display omitted] •TMS-induced motor evoked potentials (MEPs) are variable.•Cognitive, deep breathing, and static stretching tasks reduce variability of MEPs.•Similar tasks performed before TMS may improve detection of changes.•Similar tasks performed before TMS may improve normative data.•Similar tasks performed before TMS may improve the predictive ability of TMS. Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) induced via transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) demonstrate trial-to-trial variability limiting detection and interpretation of changes in corticomotor excitability. This study examined whether performing a cognitive task, voluntary breathing, or static stretching before TMS could reduce MEP variability. 20 healthy young adults performed no-task, a cognitive task (Stroop test), deep breathing, and static stretching before TMS in a randomized order. MEPs were collected in the non-dominant tibialis anterior muscle at 130% active motor threshold. Variability of MEP amplitude was quantified as coefficient of variation (CV). MEP CV was greater after no-task (25.4 ± 7.0) than after cognitive task (23.3 ± 7.2; p