Anaerobic Power And Capacity In Competitive Swimmers

Abstract

Contrary to the variety of tests used to monitor and evaluate anaerobic ability in many sports, there is a lack of tests assessing changes swimming anaerobic performance, with the exception of a system developed by Taylor (2003). However, no data are available for male or female competitive swimmers. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess anaerobic power and capacity in male and female competitive swimmers. METHODS: Twelve national level swimmers (6 male and 6 female) participated in this study (age 16.5 ± 2.0 years, mass 62.5 ± 10.1 kgr, height 174.2 ± 9.7 cm). The tethered swimming system consisted of a laptop computer and software (RsWeight), a starting block (used to anchor the force transducer), an amplifier (AD-4326A, A&D Company Ltd, Athens, Greece), a 100 kg force transducer (SBA-100L, CAS Corporation, New Jersey, USA), 7 m of pre-stretched rope (diameter 0.5 cm) and a climbing belt. The swimmers habituated to tethered swimming prior to the assessment. Swimmers commenced the test from a rolling start, which involved taking up the slack in the rope and swimming sub-maximally until a whistle was blown. Then they were instructed to swim front crawl in maximum effort for 30 s. To standardize the procedure the starting whistle was blown on the sixth stroke, when the fingertips of the right hand entered the water. Anaerobic power and capacity were measured separately for males and females and the values were compared with an independent t-test. RESULTS: The anaerobic power (expressed as peak force) for men was 167.9 ± 28.7 N, whereas for the women was 121.0 ± 9.4 N. The anaerobic capacity (fatigue index) was 43.1 ± 13.2 % and 31.2 ± 9.4 % for men and women, respectively. Anaerobic power and capacity were significantly higher in men than women (p<.05). CONCLUSION: The first set of data on anaerobic power and capacity of competitive swimmers showed that males have higher values than females. Further research on larger groups of swimmers is required in order to validate the testing procedure and to create normative data for all the levels of swimming.