Date of Award
Spring 5-16-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Exercise Science
Department
Kinesiology
First Advisor
Brenda Davies
Abstract
Firefighters commonly face dangers that call upon numerous energy systems to achieve fireground objectives. If firefighters could be put in a state of greater physical activation, then it may be possible to achieve better outcomes regarding speed and safety of objective completion. Post-activation potentiation (PAP) is a possible mechanism for achieving this readiness state that translates to firefighter activity. This paper is going to investigate whether a low volume, but high-power exercise routine will reduce time to completion of fireground simulating tasks such as a stair climb, charged hose line advance, and victim drag. Pre-intervention data will be collected before the firefighters are randomly divided into control and experimental group. Pre and post scores data will be analyzed. If PAP is successful at potentiating the firefighter’s neuromuscular readiness, then time to completion times should improve in the experimental group. This could have great benefits to improving firefighter performance and safety on the fireground, and future studies should examine the length of lasting effect with different PAP protocols.