Purpose: Race analyses during swimming reveal how exercise duration affects both clean swimming speed (v), stroke rate (SR), and stroke length (SL). The aim of this study is to provide an explanation for the change of SL and SR during paced exercise swimming the front crawl through an analysis of intracycle changes in motor organization.
Methods: Trained swimmers (N = 10) swam three times to exhaustion (TTE in seconds) at predetermined velocities corresponding to 95%, 100%, and 110% of the mean speed attained in a 400-m race (V 400). During TTE tests, SR, SL, durations of the glide + catch, pull, push, and recovery phases (s) were measured. Assessment of arm coordination was made through the calculation of the index of coordination (IdC). The time allotted to propulsion per distance unit was estimated (T prop).
Results: For all tested speeds, fatigue development induced a gradual increase of SR with concomitant decrease of SL. The duration of the nonpropulsive phases decreased, whereas the duration of the propulsive phases per stroke remained constant. The IdC increased reflecting a reduction of the lag time between two consecutive propulsive actions. Consequently, T prop increased.
Conclusion: Fatigue development induced an increase of the SR to compensate for the reduced capacity to generate a propulsive impulse per stroke. The change in arm coordination allows a better chain of the propulsive actions and leads to a greater time allotted to propulsion per distance unit. Such motor adaptation ensures that the overall propulsive impulse remained constant whereas average propulsive force per arm stroke is reduced.