The Effect 0f Warm-up on Tethered Front Crawl Swimming Forces

Henrique Neiva,Pedro Morouço,Mário Marques,António Silva,Daniel Marinho

doi:10.2478/v10078-011-0066-1

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effect of warm-up on high-intensity front crawl tethered swimming and thus to better understand possible variations in the force exerted by the swimmers. Ten male national level swimmers (mean ± SD; age 15.3 ± 0.95 years old, height: 1.73 ± 5.2 m, body mass: 64.3 ± 7.8 kg, Fat mass 8.31 ± 3.1 kg) participated in this study. After a typical competition warm-up, the subjects performed a 30 s tethered swimming all-out effort in front crawl swimming technique. The same test was repeated in the day after but performed without warming up. Capillary blood lactate concentration was assessed before and after the swimming test and the Borg ratings of perceived exertion scale was used. Without a previous warm-up, the mean ± SD values of maximum and mean forces were 299.62 ± 77.56 N and 91.65 ± 14.70 N, respectively. These values were different (p<0.05) from the values obtained with warm-up (351.33 ± 81.85 N and 103.97 ± 19.11 N). Differences were also observed when regarding to the forces relative to body mass. However, the values of lactate net concentrations after the test performed with and without warm-up were not different (6.27 ± 2.36 mmol·l−1 and 6.18 ± 2.353 mmol·l −1) and the same occurs with the values of ratings of perceived exertion (15.90 ± 2.42 and 15.60 ± 2.27). These results suggest an improvement of the maximum and mean force of the swimmer on the tethered swimming due to previous warm-up.

Highlights

Warm-up procedures before competition or training are intended to assure benefits to athlete’s performance (Atkinson et al, 2005; Burnley et al, 2002) there are few data available on physiological responses to the warmup, these routines are well accepted and commonly used by athletes and their coaches (Bishop, 2003)
Significant differences were evident for the data obtained on tethered front crawl swimming test after warm-up and without warm-up
The aim of this research was to investigate the effect of the warm-up in the force exerted on the tethered front crawl swimming in high-level swimmers

Summary

Introduction

Warm-up procedures before competition or training are intended to assure benefits to athlete’s performance (Atkinson et al, 2005; Burnley et al, 2002) there are few data available on physiological responses to the warmup, these routines are well accepted and commonly used by athletes and their coaches (Bishop, 2003). Temperature might improve performance by decreasing the viscous resistance of muscles and joints (Wright and Johns, 1961; Cavagna, 1993), increasing of nerve conduction rate and speeding of metabolic reactions, such as the muscle glycogenolysis, glycolysis and high energy phosphate degradation (Febbraio et al, 1996). This temperature rise, due to the warming-up routines performed, might contribute to increase the oxygen delivery to the muscles, via a rightward shift in the oxyhaemoglobin dissociation curve and vasodilatation of muscle blood vessels (McCutheon et al, 1999). Post activation potentiation (Sale, 2002) is presented to be responsible for a better performance after warming-up procedures

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