Total potentiation level: a new metric for quantifying post-activation potentiation dynamics using tensiomyography and statistical parametric mapping

Post-activation potentiation (PAP), a transient increase in muscle twitch force after conditioning stimuli, may influence performance. Traditional discrete metrics often fail to resolve PAP’s time-dependent contractility changes. We introduce Total Potentiation Level (TPL)—the integrated area of significant potentiation over time derived from statistical parametric mapping (SPM) of tensiomyography (TMG) data in the rectus femoris—to quantify PAP holistically. We hypothesized that this romisingSPM-based TPL approach would more sensitively capture PAP’s temporal dynamics than traditional discrete measures.