The present study was aimed to investigate the effect of ischemic postconditioning (I-postC) on ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury and whether calreticulin (CRT) is involved in its intracellular signal transduction both in vivo and in cultured skeletal muscle cells. I/R injury in the right hind limb of healthy male Wistar rats was induced by clamping the right femoral artery, and the rats were randomly divided into 3 groups (n=16): I/R group (4-hour ischemia/12- or 24-hour reperfusion), ischemic preconditioning (IPC) group (3 cycles of 1-minute ischemia/1-minute reperfusion) and I-postC group (3 cycles of 5-minute reperfusion/5-minute ischemia). The left hind limb was used as control. Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity in blood plasma, wet/dry weight ratio (W/D) and ultramicrostructure of skeletal muscle were detected 12 h or 24 h after reperfusion. Cultured skeletal muscle cells from neonatal Sprague-Dawley (SD) rat were divided into 6 groups: hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) group, hypoxic postconditioning (H-postC) group, hypoxic preconditioning (HPC) group, cyclosporine A (CsA) + H-postC group, CsA + H/R group and control group. H/R was produced by 2-hour hypoxia/24-hour reoxygenation. The survival rate and apoptotic rate of skeletal muscle cells in each group were measured. Western blot was used to detect the expressions of CRT and calcineurin (CaN). The results were as follows: (1) During in vivo experiment, compared with I/R, I-postC significantly decreased LDH activity and W/D, attenuated the ultramicrostructure injury of skeletal muscle and the apoptosis of nucleolus. 12 h and 24 h after reperfusion, compared with that in I/R group, the expression of CRT in I-postC group increased by 439% and 102%, respectively (P<0.05), and the expression of CaN increased by 196% and 63%, respectively (P<0.05). Correlation analysis indicated a positive correlation between CRT and CaN expressions (r=0.865, P<0.01). (2) In cultured skeletal muscle cells, H-postC attenuated cell injury induced by H/R. Compared with those in H/R group, CRT and CaN expressions in H-postC increased by 31.8% (P<0.05) and 6.02%, respectively. The protection of H-postC and CaN up-regulation were eliminated when CsA, the inhibitor of CaN, was added before H-postC. Both in vivo and in vitro results indicate that I-postC, similar as IPC, can protect the skeletal muscle against I/R injury, and its effects may be mediated by CRT and CaN up-regulation. The inhibition of CaN expression may also attenuate the protective effects of I-postC.