DETERMINATION OF TRAINING LOADS FROM STROKING PERFORMANCE IN FRONT CRAWL SWIMMING

Abstract

328 Pool testing with blood lactate (Bla) measurements is an important means to evaluate the conditioning of swimmers by training. Interrelationships between swimming velocity (SV), stroke rate (SR) and stroke length (SL) has been applied to evaluate the effectiveness of stroking during exercise testing. This study made comparisons between data obtained by Bla measurements and the stroke performance. A newly presented analyze technique was applied for the definition of thresholds from Bla, SR and SL curves. Thirty male and female swimmers volunteered to serve as subjects. Mean±SD for age was 16.7±3.3 y, stature 1.70±0.08 m and body mass 61.8±6.6 kg. Each subject performed a pool test session of ten 100-m swims twice in a three-day period. Pacemaker lights on the bottom of a 50-m pool was used to adjust the speeds. Bla, SR and SL curves as a function of SV were illustrated in the form of third order curvilinear regression. The thresholds were defined as the maximal distance from a line between the two end points of the curves(Dmax). Linear regression (R2) analyses, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) in connection with two-way ANOVA, and t-tests for paired observations demonstrated that the reliability between the two repeated measurements was high in each of the comparisons (R2 = 0.75-0.96; ICC> 0.80; t-tests = N.S.). The SV was highest in Dmax Bla and lowest in Dmax SL. The observed differences were statistically significant. It is concluded that the data from Bla, SR and SL measurements should be used to complement each other when the results are applied into practice.