Objective To study the protective effects of ischemic preconditioning(IP) duration against ischemic reperfusion injury of skeletal muscle. Methods Thirty-six Wister rats were made amputation-like models, which underwent temporary amputation at the level of the femur, excluding the femoral vessels. They were divided into 6 groups(n=6) according to different treatments before ischemiareperfusion: group A(4 hours of ischemiareperfusion); groups B, C, D, E(5, 10,15, 20 minutes of ischemia and 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes of reperfusion respectively, for 3 cycles, 4 hours ischemiareperfusion ); group F (no ischemia-reperfusion). The malondialdehyde(MDA), the extent of edema and necrosis of skeletal muscle were measured to observe protective effects of different ischemic preconditioning duration. Results Five minutes of ischemic preconditioning（IP5）could protect skeletal muscle of ischaemia against necrosis and the survival area of the muscle was 82.47%.The effects of IP10 and IP 15 were significantly superior to that of IP5 and the survival areas of the muscle were 89.03% and 89.49%. The effect of IP20(78.27%) was significantly inferior to that IP5. IP5 could reduce edema of skeletal muscle, the effect of IP10 was significantly superior to that of IP5. IP5, IP 10,and IP 15 could decrease the level of MDA, but IP20 did not decrease it. Conclusion The trend of protective effect of IP on ischemia-reperfusion injury of themuscle in rats first rise to the peak and then go down,10minutes ofIPis optimal.