Post-activation Potentiation: Effect of Recovery Duration and Gender on Countermovement Jump, Agility, and Linear Speed in Team-Sport Athletes

Background: Studies assessing post-activation potentiation (PAP) responses comparing male and female athletes are conflicting. Objectives: This study investigated whether differences exist in the duration for optimal post-preload stimulus measures on performance in male and female team sport athletes. Methods: Twenty-four participants (12 males and 12 females) participated in the study. Two familiarization sessions were conducted with each participant. Then, three experimental conditions were implemented, incorporating a standardized warm-up, followed by back squats (conditioning exercises) and varying passive recovery times of 4 min (PAP4), 8 min (PAP8), or 12 min (PAP12). Following the recovery, players performed three physical performance measures related to team sports: A countermovement jump, a modified agility t-test, and a 20-m linear sprint. The significance level was set at P < 0.05. Results: All performance measures were significantly greater in PAP12 than in PAP4 and PAP8 conditions in both males (1.50 to 2.95%) and females (1.09 to 5.79%) (P < 0.05). The PAP12 condition also had significantly lower values for HR (3.18 to 5.15 beats.min-1; P < 0.0005) and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) (0.63 to 1.02; P < 0.05) than PAP8 and PAP4. Males performed better on all the performance tests (19.33 to 26.34%) compared to their female counterparts (P < 0.0005). Conclusions: A pre-load stimulus consisting of one set of 5 repetitions of back squat at 85% one-repetition maximum can elicit a PAP response. A 12-min passive rest after the pre-load stimulus was most beneficial in improving physical performance measures in both male and female team-sport athletes.