Protocolization of post-activation performance enhancements in swimming and its relationship with the relative strength

Abstract

Objective: This study tried a post-activation performance enhancements protocol in 16 competitive swimmers.

Method: First, maximal conditioning exercises for upper and lower limbs were applied and tested after 5, 8, 12 and 20 minutes of rest through maximal voluntary contractions’ test (3 reps of vertical jump and 3 reps of flying push-up). On a subsequent session, specific conditioning exercises were applied again in both limbs and its effects were assessed on a 50-m swimming race after providing the same rest time in what the best performance was detected (8 min). Finally, the relative strength index was obtained in all the participants to study the relationship with the swimming performance variables.

Results: All the variables related to swimming start performance improved. The velocity during flight was higher due to an increase of the forces produced against the block. The swimming time to 50-m was similar to obtained after the standard condition although swimming velocities were higher at the beginning of the race.

Conclusions: The subjects with higher relative strength index obtained better results and reacted better to post-activation performance enhancements, possibly because its effects are larger in type II fibers and they are more frequent in trained subjects.