Relationship between swimming speed, intra-cycle variation of horizontal speed, and Froude efficiency during consecutive stroke cycles in adolescent swimmers

Mafalda P Pinto; Daniel A Marinho; Henrique P Neiva; Jorge E Morais

doi:10.7717/peerj.16019

Relationship between swimming speed, intra-cycle variation of horizontal speed, and Froude efficiency during consecutive stroke cycles in adolescent swimmers

PeerJ. 2023 Oct 9:11:e16019. doi: 10.7717/peerj.16019. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Mafalda P Pinto^{1

2}, Daniel A Marinho^{1

2}, Henrique P Neiva^{1

2}, Jorge E Morais^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sport Sciences, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal.
² Research Centre in Sports, Health and Human Development (CIDESD), Covilhã, Portugal.
³ Department of Sport Sciences, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between swimming speed, intra-cycle variation of horizontal speed of displacement (dv), and Froude efficiency (η_F) in front-crawl during three consecutive stroke cycles. The sample consisted of 15 boys aged 16.07 ± 0.77 years and 15 girls aged 15.05 ± 1.07 years. Swimming speed, dv and η_F were measured during a 25 m front-crawl trial. Three consecutive stroke cycles were measured. Swimming speed showed a non-significant stroke-by-stroke effect (F = 2.55, p = 0.087, η² = 0.08), but a significant sex effect (F = 90.46, p < 0.001, η² = 0.76). The dv and η_F had the same trend as the swimming speed for the stroke-by-stroke effect, but a non-significant sex effect (p > 0.05). The Spearman correlation matrix between swimming speed and dv, and swimming speed and η_F showed non-significant correlations for the three stroke cycles in both sexes. However, the tendency of the former was not always inverse, and the latter was not always direct. Coaches and swimmers need to be aware that lower dvs are not always associated with faster swimming speeds and vice-versa, and that η_F is a predictor of swimming speed, not dv.

Keywords: Efficiency; Maximal trials; Motor behavior; Swimming; Technique.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Biomechanical Phenomena
Female
Humans
Male
Swimming*

Grants and funding

This work is supported by national funds (FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) under the project UIDB/DTP/04045/2020. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.