The determinant factors of undulatory underwater swimming performance: A systematic review

ABSTRACT

The prominence of undulatory underwater swimming (UUS) has been clearly observed during recent international events. Improvement of this phase is important for overall performance. The aim of this systematic review was to identify the key factors that modulate UUS performance and provide coaches and sports science practitioners with valuable and practical information to optimise it. PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and SPORTDiscus databases were searched up to 14 October 2021. Studies involving competitive swimmers and which included UUS performance assessment were considered. Methodological quality assessment was conducted for the included articles. From the 193 articles screened, 15 articles were included. There was a substantial body of research conducted on kicking frequency, vertical toe and body wave velocity, angular velocity of the joints, distance per kick, joint amplitudes and mobility, and body position in UUS performance. However, further investigation is required for muscle activation and muscle strength influence. The results from this review contribute to understanding of how to optimise UUS performance, identifying the key aspects that must be addressed during training. Specifically, the caudal momentum transfer should be maximised, the upbeat duration reduced, and the frequency that best suits swimmers’ characteristics should be identified individually.

KEYWORDS:

• Dolphin kick
• swimmers
• biomechanics
• propulsion
• sprint

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2022.2061259

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spanish Agency of Research) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); PGC2018-102116-B-I00 “SWIM II: Specific Water Innovative Measurements: Applied to the performance improvement” and the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport: FPU17/02761 grant. This article is a part of an international thesis belonging to the Program of PhD in Biomedicine (B11.56.1), from the University of Granada, Granada (Spain).