The effect of high‐ and low‐intensity warm‐up on the physiological responses to a standardized swim and tethered swimming performance

This investigation was conducted to determine the effect of high‐ and low‐intensity warm‐ups on physiological responses, lactate accumulation, and high‐intensity freestyle and tethered swimming performance. Ten male collegiate swimmers were tested for maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂ max) followed by two series of three warm‐up protocols performed in a randomized order at least 2 days apart. The warm‐up protocols were: (1) no warm‐up (NWU), (2) a 366‐m swim at 70% VO₂ max (LWU) and (3) four 46‐m swims at 1‐min intervals at a speed corresponding to 110% VO₂ max (HWU). Five minutes after each warm‐up in the first series, the swimmers swam a 183‐m standardized freestyle swim at a velocity corresponding to 110% VO₂ max, and 5 min after each warm‐up in the second series the swimmers completed a tethered swim to exhaustion with a weight attached to the tether to elicit fatigue at about 2 min. Three minutes after each warm‐up and 3 min after each standardized and tethered swim, a finger‐prick blood sample for lactate measurement was obtained. Heart rate and VO₂ were also measured during the warm‐up and the standardized and tethered swims.

The performance times in the tethered swim were not significantly different between the three conditions (116.8+46.8, 137±53.3 and 122.94±37.2 s for the NWU, LWU and HWU, respectively). Following the WU, the lactate for the HWU (6.97 + 1.97 and 6.15±1.86 mM) was significantly elevated compared to the NWU (1.73±0.61 and 1.56 + 0.66 mm) and LWU (2.27±0.81 and 2.44±0.81 mM) for both the standardized and tethered swimming conditions. In addition, lactate after the standardized swim was significantly elevated in the HWU (13.66 + 2.66 mM) compared to the NWU and LWU (9.53 ± 2.22 and 10.04 ±2.15 mM, respectively). The results indicated that varying the intensity of the warm‐up protocol can elevate lactate, but does not affect performance. In addition, there appears to be no beneficial effect on performance of an intensity‐specific warm‐up compared to a low‐intensity or no warm‐up.

Keywords:

• Anaerobic metabolism
• prior exercise

Notes

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