by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS
One of my favorite techniques for both strength and conditioning and rehab is post activation potentiation. Many people refer to it as contrast training and it is a highly effective way of producing power.
What is it?
Post Activation Potentiation (PAP): The peak torque of an isometric twitch in skeletal muscle is transiently increased after a brief maximum voluntary contraction
Basically, what happens with PAP is that you pair a strength exercise with a power exercise in close proximity to each other while training, and there is an subsequent increase in muscle spindle activity that results in greater strength and power gains.
Traditional PAP training involves performing a set of a controlled, loaded strength movement and then quickly moving to a similar exercise that is explosive in nature. As an example, one might perform a set of loaded back squats followed up with squat jumps with minimal rest in between. The strength movement turns on the nervous system at a high level and the explosive exercise reinforces the high output.
Research tells us that when you perform this type of training program, there is a short term improvement that can result in long term changes chronic changes when performed in repeat sessions. PAP also maximizes your training time because it makes training very efficient, performing several exercises in a short amount of time.
Other examples of of PAP would be lunges combined with scissor jumps, bench press combined with medicine ball throws, and pistol squats paired with single leg box jumps. If I have the facilities, I prefer to add whole body vibration into the mix as another way to activity the nervous system.
Why use PAP?
I like PAP because it is easy, safe and efficient to perform. It utilizes movements that most people already know and perform well. I also love movements like cleans and snatches to improve power output, but those movements require a high level of training and technical expertise to perform well. In this day of high expectations with very limited amounts of time, I look for ways to maximize every minute that I have. This makes PAP attractive because just about any athlete can perform it on day 1.
I also like PAP because it can be performed with minimal equipment. You don’t need fancy equipment or even high loads to see results. That means that I can perform PAP in our clinical setting where I don’t have the ability to load people up with big loads or have fancy strength and conditioning facilities. PAP allows you to be creative and make things meaningful for the athlete.
Who should perform PAP?
I keep using the term “athlete”, mostly because that is my usual population. And, to be clear, PAP isn’t usually needed for the general population, unless they have specific performance goals in mind. That isn’t to say that it can’t be used with the general population, but PAP is intense in nature and designed to improve power output, which many people don’t care about.
Most people associate PAP with performance training rather than in a clinical setting, which I think is unfortunate. I use PAP a ton in the athletic training room with my rehab patients. It is an especially helpful training tool for longer term rehab patients such as ACL reconstructions, hip labral repairs, and achilles tendon reconstructions. In these situations, PAP allows me to prepare their body and tissue for higher and higher loads in a controlled environment.
If you haven’t used PAP before, or maybe you moved away from it for a while for some reason, I am encouraging you to integrate it into your training systems. And, if you want to dive a bit deeper into the subject, here is a nice article that explains and summarizes the concept.
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