Physiological and biomechanical in different swimming intensities

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the physiological and biomechanical responses of swimmers at different swimming intensities. The intentionally selected sample was composed by seven athletes with swimming times for qualifying on the Brazilian Swimming Championship. A series of 8x200 free style swimming at speeds of 80%, 85%, 90%, 95% and 100% of individual maximum effort was used as the task. A film camera of 60 Hz and an Accusport mMol lactimeter were used for data collection. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) with “post-hoc” Tukey test and Spearman’s correlation were used for statistical analyses to identify the differences between athletes for the variables blood lactate, crawl stroke frequency (FB) and dimension (BR) at different intensities. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Based on the results, there were significant differences on swimming technique among effort intensities, for both the physiological and mechanical responses, especially at levels above 95% individual maximum effort. The high correlation between blood lactate and crawl stroke frequency and length, and between crawl stroke frequency and length, with the last two correlations being negative, indicated that the proposed series was adequate to analyze physiological and biomechanical response. It was concluded that as the intensity increases, there is a need for mechanical adjustments to enable the athletes to endure different speeds. It was also possible to establish the ideal swimming speed for each energetic zone, providing data for coaches and athletes to train both speed and technique within the specific energetic zones.