Human Movement: Swimming

The research of human movement is quite complex, because human origins are not so determinists as other (bio)mechanical systems; assessing human beings in aquatic environment becomes even more as this is not their natural environment and other physical principles have to be considered. This makes competitive swimming as one of the most challenging sports to perform scientific research (Barbosa et al. 2011). In fact, the challenge of the current study was to assess the physiological and biomechanical behavior of competitive swimmers, in order to close the gap between theory and practice.

To assess the chosen physiological and biomechanical parameters, the intermittent incremental protocol was the prime tool used in this study; the protocol was adapted from the 7x200 m front crawl protocol validated by Cardoso et al. (2003) and, applied to competitive swimmers by Fernandes et al. (2003). Initially, this protocol has been used to assess the maximal volume of oxygen consumption (VO2max) and corresponding swimming velocities (Fernandes et al., 2003), being considered to be reached according to primary and secondary traditional physiological criteria (cf. Adams,1998; Howley et al., 1995), particularly the occurrence of a plateau in oxygen uptake despite an increase in swimming velocity and high levels of blood lactic acid concentrations ([La-]≥8 mmol/l), elevated respiratory exchange ratio (R≥ 1.0), elevated heart rate (>90% of [220-age]) and exhaustive perceived exertion.

However, the main objective was not to assess VO2max but to use the 7x200m intermittent incremental protocol to assess AnT. In fact, AnT assessment is one of the most used parameters determined by the 7x200m protocol (P...

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...may reflect the skill and technique of the swimmers to adopt a better streamlined position (cf. Zamparo et al., 2009); therefore, high values of TI leads to a higher hydrodynamic resistance and vice-versa. It was observed that TI maintained constant throughout the 7x200m protocol, which are not in accordance with Zamparo et al. (2009). For the authors, with the increasing of v, TI tends to decrease. Under fatigue the swimmer may pay less attention to body alignment, which induces a less streamlined position (Craig et al., 1985).

In this context, the 7x200m intermittent incremental protocol should be considered a precise tool to assess individual biomechanical and physiological parameters and their interaction should be taken in account. Although, future research may centers in the connection of those parameters and understand the behavior before and after AnT.