Kinematical changes in swimming front crawl and breaststroke with the AquaTrainer® snorkel

• Autor(a) principal: Barbosa, Tiago M.
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Outros Autores: Silva, A.J., Reis, António, Costa, M.J., Garrido, Nuno D., Policarpo, Fernando, Reis, Victor M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/3541
• topic: Competitive swimming; Stroke rate; Stroke length; Speed Xuctuation; Swimming snorkel

The aim of the present study was to assess the kinematical changes when swimming maximal bouts in Front Crawl and Breaststroke with the AquaTrainer® snorkel. Thirteen male swimmers (7 at Breaststroke and 6 at Front Crawl) of national level performed randomly two maximal bouts of 100-m swims: one bout using the Aqua- Trainer® snorkel (snorkel swim) and another one without the snorkel (free swim). The swims were videotaped in sagital plane with a pair of cameras providing 2D kinematics evaluation. The following measures were assessed: swimming performance (T100), stroke cycle period (P), stroke rate (SR), stroke length (SL), swimming velocity (v), swimming eYciency as estimated by the stroke index (SI), speed Xuctuation (dv) and the mathematical characterisation of dv. T100 was signiWcantly higher when swimming with the snorkel than in free swimming at Breaststroke (= 6.26%) and at Front Crawl (= 4.75%). P, SR and SL, as well as SI and dv did not present signiWcant diVerences. The main Wnding of the study was that changes in the swimming velocity imposed by the use of the Aquatrainer® do not seem due to changes in general kinematics or swimming eYciency