Post-activation Potentiation: Effects of Different Conditioning Intensities on Measures of Physical Fitness in Male Young Professional Soccer Players

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of different warm-up conditioning intensities on the physical fitness (i.e., post-activation potentiation -PAP), of professional male field soccer players. Athletes (n = 10; age: 21.6 ± 3.2 years) completed a control warm-up and warm-ups aimed to induce PAP, in random and counterbalanced order. After control and experimental warm-up sessions participants completed a triple hop test with the dominant (H3Jd) and a non-dominant (H3Jnd) leg, a squat jump (SJ), a countermovement jump (CMJ), a change of direction ability (COD) test, a repeated sprint with a COD (RSCOD) test and a linear 30-m sprint test (S-30). The control warm-up (WU) protocol was designed according to athlete's regular warm-up practice. The experimental warm-ups included the same exercises as the WU, with addition of one set of half-back squats for 10 repetitions at 60%, 5 repetitions at 80%, and 1 repetition at 100% of 1RM (60%-1RM, 80%-1RM and 100%-1RM, respectively.) Threshold values for Cohen's effect sizes (ES) were calculated and used for group's comparison. Likely to most likely improvements were shown in H3Jd (ES = 0.52), H3Jnd (ES = 0.51), COD (ES = 0.38), fasted sprint (RSCODb) (ES = 0.58) and the total time of all sprints (RSCODt) (ES = 0.99) only after the 80%-1RM protocol in comparison to the WU. Conversely, 100%-1RM and 60%-1RM protocols, compared to WU, induced possibly to most likely poorer performance in all jumps, COD and RSCODb (ES = -0.07 to -1.03 and ES = -0.48 to -0.91, respectively). Possibly to most likely improvements were shown in all jumps, COD, RSCODb and RSCODt after the 80%-1RM warm-up protocol in comparison to the 100%-1RM and 60%-1RM warm-up protocols (ES = 0.35 to 2.15 and ES = 0.61 to 1.46, respectively). A moderate warm-up intensity (i.e., 80%-1RM back squat) may induce greater PAP, including improvements in jumping, repeated and non-repeated change of direction speed in male soccer players.

Keywords: fatigue; plyometric; soccer; speed; warm-up.

FIGURE 1

Change of direction ability test.

FIGURE 2

Overview of the cross-over experimental design, indicating the control and three different warm-up conditions. The 15-minutes recovery period was included during control condition. The 10-minutes plus 5-minutes recovery period were included during PAP protocols, to simulate match conditions. The tests were divided at two measurement (M) day corresponding to each protocols. 60%-1RM, 80%-1RM, and 100%-1RM refer to match warm-up post-activation potentiation (PAP) protocols at 60, 80 and 100% of 1RM, respectively; WU, match warm-up protocol; M, measurement; H3Jd, triple hop test with dominant leg; H3Jnd, triple hop test with non-dominant leg; SJ, squat jump test; RSCOD, repeated sprint with change of direction test; S-30, linear 30-m sprint test; CMJ, countermovement jump test; COD, change of direction ability test.