Pre-exercise skin temperature evolution is not related with 100m front crawl performance.

Abstract

During the transition between warm-up and competition there is a change in core, muscle and (eventually) skin temperature that may affect swimming performance. We have aimed to assess skin temperature evolution during transition phases of different durations before a typical front crawl effort and to investigate its relationship with performance. Following a standardized warm-up, nine adolescent male swimmers performed three maximal randomized 100m maximum front crawl trials after 10, 20 and 45min transition phases. Skin temperature, performance (time, stroke frequency, length and index, and propelling efficiency), heart rate, lactate and perceived effort were assessed. Data showed a skin temperature log increase over time (R2>0.96, p<0.01) without differences from the 15min with the following instants. Performance and psychophysiological variables were similar between transition phases. However, skin temperature at the end of the transition periods, i.e., just before the 100m trials, was lower in the 10min than the 20 and 45min transitions (32.0±0.6 vs 33.0±0.4 and 33.5±0.5°C, respectively). The main finding was that no relevant relationships were observed between pre-test skin temperature and performance times (|r| < 0.6, p > 0.05) for the studied transition phases. We have concluded that transitions longer than 10min will not present thermal changes and that, within the physiologic limits studied, pre-exercise skin temperature does not influence swimming performance.