Lower and upper extremity contributions to propulsion and resistance during semi-tethered load-velocity profiling in front crawl swimming

ABSTRACT

The study estimated lower and upper extremity contributions to whole-body front crawl swimming using semi-tethered load-velocity profiling. Nine female and 11 male (inter)national-level swimmers performed 20 m semi-tethered sprints, each with five progressive loads for lower (leg kicking), upper (arm stroke), and whole-body front crawl movements. The theoretical maximal speed (v₀) and load (L₀), and active drag (D_a) were expressed as a percentage of the sum of both extremities for the movements of each extremity to calculate their contributions. The difference of whole-body values minus the sum of both extremities was used to estimate whole-body reserves. Lower (upper) body contributions were 43.8 ± 2.8% (56.2%) for v₀, 37.3 ± 7.1% (62.7%) for L₀, and 39.6 ± 5.6% (60.4%) for D_a. Statistically significant whole-body reserves were found for v₀ (−30.9 ± 3.9%, p < 0.001) and D_a (−5.7 ± 11.7%, p = 0.04). V₀ reserves correlated very highly with whole-body v₀ in males (r = 0.71, p = 0.014) and moderately in females (r = 0.47, p = 0.21). The lower extremities contribute substantially to front crawl load-velocity profiles of highly trained swimmers. Higher sprint swimming speeds are associated with an efficient speed transfer from lower- and upper- to whole-body movement.

KEYWORDS:

• Sprint swimming
• performance diagnostics
• elite sport
• individualization
• neuromuscular capacity

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Paula Lemberg and Henrik Heitmann for their valuable support in data collection as well as the German swimming federation, especially Dr. Alexander Törpel and Stefan Fuhrmann, for providing the 1080 Sprint and support with participant acquisition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Federal Institute of Sports Science (Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft, Bonn, Germany) under Grant PR020210801318 (10/2021–06/2022).