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As an athlete or general population, the one factor that creates a huge gap between gym strong and real world strong is power. In a sport, a lot depends on an athlete's ability to "speed through" or "force through" an obstacle or an opponent or hit the ball with max speed. Similarly, in a general environment, the ability to be swift and speedy in all regards helps an individual overcome physical obstacles with quick reaction times and agile movements. Something like getting out of a dangerous situation or pushing through a steep climb, heck, lift that heavy ass weight with speed and control, power is needed everywhere.
Power = Strength x Speed or Force x Velocity
This means, the speed with which you apply force determines how powerful you are.
What is Post Activation Potentiation ?
A solid way to develop power is through utilization of a heightened state of neuromuscular system and capitalizing that state to perform the activity you want to improve upon. This concept is known as "Post Activation Potentiation" or "PAP".
The first activity used to "prime" the body or get into a heightened state is the Conditioning movement which is followed by the main activity you're trying to improve which could be your skill or specific movement pertaining to your sport.
The logic behind PAP as shown by few studies is that using a heavier load and pre-loading the muscles with a similar movement pattern as that of the main exercise, the muscle fibers actin and myosin become more sensitive to the calcium released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum and hence the force produced from each subsequent contraction is higher. Another reason why we experience enhanced performance in our main exercise is due to the activation of the central nervous system because of heavy pre-loading. Learn how the nervous system plays a part in achieving max results with your training here.
The most common and highly effective way to use PAP is to develop explosive power through the use of a heavy strength based compound movement for 8-10 sec i.e. 2-3 reps max at roughly 80-85% of your 1-Rep max(1-RM) followed by an explosive movement that is biomechanically similar in nature to the strength based movement. This is also known as "Contrast Training", "Transfer Training" or "Complex Training" (CPPS).
For example, to improve someone's vertical jump height or broad jump distance, they are made to perform a heavy back squat or a trap bar deadlift (conditioning exercise) with 80-85% of 1RM for 2-3 reps followed by the vertical jump(skill/main movement) done for 2-3 reps.
One should take care not to fatigue themselves from the conditioning or strength based movement. Fatigue will negate the purpose you're using the conditioning exercise for - to improve your vertical jump. Therefore, we use roughly 80-85% of your max weight and rest around 15-20 seconds before moving on to the main exercise. Rest is an individual thing as it depends upon whether someone is already in great shape and what are their recovery capabilities. But still, as a thumb rule,15-20 sec is the sweet spot. However, if you still feel, you can rest more or less. If you rest for too long i.e. beyond 3-4 min, you may lose the "potentiation" or "activation" and hence this may also hamper your performance on the main exercise. Hence, do a hit and trial to find your sweet "resting" spot.
If you don't have access to heavier loads and still want to achieve PAP effect, you can use "Overcoming Isometrics" which means trying to exert maximum force against an immovable object for a very short duration (~6-8 sec) so as to heighten the neuromuscular system and transfer the same to the main explosive movement.
Point to be understood is that both conditioning and main movements have to be biomechanically similar in nature to have a training effect and care should be taken to pair exercises with similar force vectors - Horizontal strength movement + Horizontal explosive main movement and same goes for vertical plane.
Example - Overhead Military press shouldn't be paired with a plyometric push-up as both are of different planes. A good pairing will be bench press + plyo push-up (Verkoshansky's dynamic correspondence principle). This is known as "Specific Transfer".
However, there is "General Transfer" as well which happens when you use a compound strength based movement like the squat and pair it with a sprint. Since squats target the lower body and core, all in all it targets the entire musculature of the body, this heightens the CNS and primes the body to enhance the speed of the sprint which is also lower body dominant yet requires total body mechanics.
A similar effect can be attained in a reverse manner where conditioning exercise is the explosive movement and the main exercise is the biomechanically similar strength based lift in the same plane of movement. This principle is very commonly used in our warmup template to heighten or prime the CNS which helps recruit as many high threshold motor units (HTMU's) to prep the body to lift heavy ass weights!
Learn more about how to structure your warm-up here.
Also, in a typical power-bodybuilding type of training where the lifter ramps-up(insert ramping hyperlink) to a heavy weight which is his top set and then subsequently strips the weight off with each set thereafter(Pyramid Set), each strip set feels that much lighter and hence more reps can be performed and a much greater training effect can be attained.
Another example where PAP plays a role is during cluster sets. In a typical cluster workout, similar weight is used for all sets usually but instead of repping-out the weight continuously, you perform one rep, rack the weight, wait for 15-20 sec, unrack, and do another. This way, after a certain amount of reps depending on the effort and the load used, you feel a heightened sensation and subsequent sets start feeling lighter and faster. If you watch the below video esp at 6:10 mark, you will listen to joe mentioning exactly the same activation or natural energy that comes with PAP during cluster sets.
PAP is a very good alternative to the Olympic lifts like the power clean or the snatch and variants which are too technical to teach and hence can be incorporated with each for all sorts of athletes and general population trying to improve upon their strength and conditioning.
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