Abstract
Ice swimming following the rules of IISA (International Ice Swimming Association) is a recent sports discipline starting in 2009. Since then, hundreds of athletes have completed an Ice Mile or an Ice Km in water colder than 5 °C. This study aimed to expand our knowledge about swimmers completing an Ice Mile or an Ice Km regarding the influence of anthropometric characteristics (i.e., body mass, body height, and body mass index, BMI) on performance. We analyzed data from 957 swimmers in the Ice Km (590 men and 367 women) and 585 swimmers in the Ice Mile (334 men and 251 women). No differences were found for anthropometric characteristics between swimmers completing an Ice Mile and an Ice Km although water temperatures and wind chill were lower in the Ice Km than in the Ice Mile. Men were faster than women in both the Ice Mile and Ice Km. Swimming speed decreased significantly with increasing age, body mass, and BMI in both women and men in both the Ice Mile and Ice Km. Body height was positively correlated to swimming speed in women in the Ice Km. Air temperature was significantly and negatively related to swimming speed in the Ice Km but not in the Ice Mile. Water temperature was not associated with swimming speed in men in both the Ice Mile and Ice Km but significantly and negatively in women in Ice Km. In summary, swimmers intending to complete an Ice Mile or an Ice Km do not need to have a high body mass and/or a high BMI to swim these distances fast.
Highlights
The present study aimed to expand our knowledge about swimmers completing an Ice Mile or an Ice Km regarding the influence of anthropometric characteristics on performance
Some of the data were acquired at the application to participate in an event and some post-event when results were available
This study intended to investigate the influence of anthropometric characteristics swimming speed in women in Ice Km; and (iii) there were no differences for anthropometric
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cold water swimming, including ice swimming and winter swimming, has been a popular recreational past time for nearly 500 years [1,2]. Ice swimming is traced back to the early Russian celebrations of the Epiphany [1]. In recent years, ice swimming has steadily grown in popularity and has become an internationally recognized competitive discipline [3]
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