INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS OF SPECIFIC PRECONDITIONING ACTIVITIES ON ACUTE SPRINT PERFORMANCE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the acute effects of postactivation potentiation (PAP) on 100m sprint performance. 12 track and field athletes participated in 3 testing sessions over a 1-week period. Participants performed 3 different warm-up protocols on three non-consecutive days. All protocols were identical apart from the PAP stimulus, lasted 30 minutes in total and were designed to mirror competition warm-ups used by competitive athletes. Following the warmup participants completed either a 3RM heavy back-squat (HBS), 50m resisted sprint (RS), or 5 mins stationary cycling (CC) followed by 8 minutes recovery, then completed a 100m sprint. No significant differences were found for 100m sprint time between HBS (12.20 ± 0.79s), RS (12.21 ± 0.79s) or CC (12.22 ± 0.79s) protocols (p = .936). In addition, the different warm-up protocols did not elicit statistically significant changes in reaction time (p = .549) or any 10m split time over the 100m distance. These findings indicate that PAP does not effect 100m sprint performance when preceeded by a thorough warm-up.