Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf - Fitness Competitors and PAP
I first heard of the term “PAP” six months ago when a friend was telling me about how he achieved his recent physical gains; however, it wasn’t until, in training for my first Bikini Competition a few months ago, that I discovered PAP and injected it into my training regime when my results prior to competition day were stagnating.
I had hit a plateau. I had lost body fat but needed to not only lose more but also needed to build muscle, a feat we all know is the most difficult. And, with a five week window starring me in the face, I took toeducating myself more on new strategies to bring to life the results I desired.
Simply explained, PAP, or Post-Activation Potentiation, is akin to tricking your nervous system into increasing its output. “Post-Activation Potentiation is based on the concept of overloading the muscles with a load rough;y 120% of your 1RM or as much force as the athlete can apply isometrically in 5-8 seconds. This overloading of the muscles recruits additional muscle mass because the existing engaged muscle mass needs more help to apply great force”, stated Matt Owens . After lifting such a great mass, the athlete can then proceed to do an explosive movement more rapidly due to the additional muscle fibers engaged due to the prior lift. Sounds like a lot, right? For your body, it is, internally, but, in practice, it is a no-brainer.
In my quest to efficiently and effectively continue to progress towards competition day, I sought out my local “box” or Crossfit gym. The box I selected was where I decided I would best be able to not only get out of my training comfort zone, but also would be the place I would, under supervision, be able to test PAP, daily, and hope it would bring to fruition the goals I desired for myself. I didn’t take up crossfit at the exclusion of my regular training; quite the contrarey, I used it as an additional training mechanisim.
Without turning this into an article about Crossfit itself, I must say that I had to relearn, or learn some new movements that were counterintuitive to my Personal Trainer brain. Having been a trainer for three years, performing a hang clean with power instead of a reverse curl was mentally a challenge, but I digress. What I found was, most of the WOD’s (workouts of the day) in crossfit tapped into PAP. I found that as I moved from a heavy loading exercise, like a hang clean, to a plyometric exercise, like a box jump, the box jumps decreased in difficulty. In effect, I was, without knowing it, experiencing PAP day 1, WOD 1.
PAP is best utilized through complex training, which involves heavy loading or resistance exercises followed by an explosive exercise which is repeated for a number of sets. The more excited the central nervous system becomes during complex training, the easier the athlete will be able to perform the explosive exercise, with the effects lasting up to thirty minutes, but over time or consistently using this method of training, the athletes gains will be far more measureable.
For me, utilizing PAP through the complex training provided to me at Crossfit, allowed me to gain more muscle mass, become stronger, tighten up, and feel more confident going into my first show. I know most competitors do utilize heavy load days and plyometrics to their training, but a few combinations to try next time, in order to really ignite those TypeII muscle fibers and to utilize all that is PAP would be the following:
Squat (5x2) to Box Jump (5x2)
HipThrust to Broad Jump
Bench Press to Plyo Push-up
Pushup to Tire Battling
Is PAP the Big Bad Wolf to the Fitness Competitor? Not at all. I think that if Little Red Riding Hood added complex training involving PAP to her daily routine, she would be able to overhead press the wolf, toss him and run like the wind out of that forest! Maybe I’m biased; however, I will continue to use training that engages PAP in my journey to my next competition!
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