Effects of Post-Activation Performance Enhancement on Competitive Swimmers’ Performance: A Systematic Review

Study purpose. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the effects of post-activation potentiation/post-activation performance enhancement (PAP/PAPE) warm-up protocols on swimmers’ performance. Materials and methods.  The searches were carried out on the electronic database PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and EBSCO platforms. Studies from 2010 to May 2022 related to PAP/PAPE and its effect on swimming performance in swimmers aged between 18 and 35 were included. Results. Nine of 333 studies were included in this review. In two studies, peak thrust improved by 13% to 19% for PAP vs non-PAP and by 3% on performance. One study showed improvements by 10% on speed and speed fluctuation in 25 m all-out PAP vs non-PAP. Rate of force development (RFD) 15 m maximum effort was higher for dry land warm up (DLWU) than swimming warm up (SWU). One study had higher velocity in 5 m for repetition maximum warm-up (RMWU) and eccentric fly-wheel warm-up (EWU) vs SWU. One study demonstrated enhancements for upper-body PAP (UBPAP), low-body PAP (LBPAP) and MIX (UBPAP/LBPAP) vs warm up based on general exercises (GEN) in time to 25 m freestyle (T25FS). Two studies found improvements for band squats PAP compared to swimming specific warm up (SSWU) in time to 15 m. One study demonstrated that PAP trial (PAPT) was faster than control time trial (CTT) in 50 m and 100 m freestyle trial. Dive velocity (DV) was faster for RMWU/EWU vs SWU. One study showed significant increase in power vertical force (PVF) and power horizontal force (PHF) after the PAP vs SSWU. Conclusions. PAP/PAPE is one more tool that can be beneficial if adapted to the conditions of swimmers, controlling fatigue levels, where it is performed (land or water), and most importantly, described by many coaches, the specificity of movement.