Reliability of a semi-tethered front crawl sprint performance test in adolescent swimmers

Stefan Szczepan; Zofia Wróblewska; Sebastian Klich; Kamil Michalik; Tomohiro Gonjo; Bjørn Harald Olstad; Marek Rejman

doi:10.3389/fphys.2023.1260346

Reliability of a semi-tethered front crawl sprint performance test in adolescent swimmers

Front Physiol. 2023 Dec 13:14:1260346. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1260346. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Stefan Szczepan¹, Zofia Wróblewska², Sebastian Klich³, Kamil Michalik⁴, Tomohiro Gonjo⁵, Bjørn Harald Olstad⁶, Marek Rejman¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Swimming, Faculty of Physical Education and Sport, Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland.
² Faculty of Pure and Applied Mathematics, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Wroclaw, Poland.
³ Department of Paralympic Sport, Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Science, Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland.
⁴ Department of Human Motor Skills, Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Wroclaw University of Health and Sport Sciences, Wroclaw, Poland.
⁵ Institute for Life and Earth Sciences, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
⁶ Department of Physical Performance, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway.

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the test-retest reliability of a sprint performance test with semi-tethered front crawl swimming to indirectly assess the current potential to perform at maximal anaerobic effort in adolescent swimmers. Eight adolescent swimmers participated in this study (gender: females (n = 4) aged 13.0 ± 0.8 years, body height 1.6 ± 0.0 m, body mass 50.1 ± 4.5 kg; and males (n = 4) aged 13.3 ± 1.3 years, body height 1.7 ± 0.1 m, body mass 59.0 ± 8.2 kg. The testing protocol consisted of two trials of 25 m semi-tethered front crawl swimming with maximal effort and with 1 kg resisted isotonic load. Velocity data were recorded automatically by the 1080 Sprint device for 15 m (between 3 m and 18 m). The Fast Fourier Transform algorithm filtered raw instantaneous swimming velocity data in distance (time) function. A third-degree polynomial was used to extract the individual velocity profile, from which the following variables were chosen for test-retest reliability and the assessment of sprint performance: t_trial15, v_max, v_min, tv_{to max,} tv_{at max}, D_to v_max, D_at v_max, fatigue index. Parameters such as v_max, v_min, and t_trial15 were estimated from swimming velocity profiles and considered as reliable. The CV showed low variance <5%; while ICC_2,1 demonstrated respectively good (ICC_2,1: 0.88), very good (ICC_2,1: 0.95), and excellent (ICC_2,1: 0.98) rate of relative reliability; and the Bland-Altman index revealed an acceptable agreement (LoA ≤5%) between two measurements. The sprint performance test based on semi-tethered front crawl swimming confirmed that t_trial15, v_max, and v_min were reliable variables to indirectly indicate a potential to perform the maximal anaerobic effort among adolescent swimmers. The evaluation of the swimming velocity profiles allows coaches to monitor the adaptive changes of performance during the training process.

Keywords: adolescent swimmers; anaerobic capacity; semi-tethered swimming; sport-specific tests; swimming.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.