Post Activation Potentiation in North American High School Football Players

Post activation potentiation (PAP) is an acute enhancement of muscular power production resulting from a high intensity potentiating exercise. Practical applications of the PAP phenomena as a warmup strategy are the focus of ongoing research. This study compared the effects of a dynamic and a PAP warm up strategy on speed and horizontal plane muscular power output. High School male football players (n = 16) participated in a repeated measures cross over design study consisting of 3 testing days. Day 1: one repetition maximum (1-RM) back squats were established. Day 2: half of the participants completed a dynamic warmup consisting of dynamic movements (ex. high knees, butt kickers, frog jumps, cherry pickers, lateral slide, karaokes, back pedal) while the other half of the participants performed a PAP warmup consisting of back squats culminating in a set of 4 repetitions at 85% of 1-RM. Following the warmups (4-minutes), the participants performed 3 trials of a weighted sled push 91 kilograms (200 pounds) over a 9.1 meter (10 yards) linear path. Following the sled pushes, the participants then performed three trials of 18.2 meter (20 yards) sprints. Day 3: participants crossed over with respect to the warmup procedures and again performed the three sled push and sprint trials. Dependent t-tests were used to compare the sled push and sprint times between warm up conditions. Both the 18.2 meter sprint (P \u3c 0.01) and the 91 kilogram sled push (P \u3c 0.01) showed a significant improvement when PAP was utilized as a warmup, rather than the dynamic warmup. Within the parameters of the study, it is concluded that PAP as a warm up strategy enhances sprint ability and horizontal plane muscular power output