The Transition from Underwater to Surface Swimming During the Push-off Start in Competitive Swimmers

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to analyze (based on gender and the style of swimming) the kinematic parameters of the transition phase between underwater swimming and surface swimming after the push-off start in competitive national swimmers. Seventy-four swimmers participating in the Spanish Swimming Championships were filmed and analyzed by DLT-2D photogrammetry during the start with the push-off in crawl, backstroke and butterfly styles. Between genders there were small differences in the distance and speed of transition. The male swimmers travelled greater distances (0.84 ± 0.04 vs. 0.66 ± 0.04 m, η2 = 0.05, F = 10.34, p < 0.001) and they were faster (1.59 ± 0.03 vs. 1.38 ± 0.03 m/s, η2 = 0.08, F = 19.54, p < 0.001) in the transition phase than female swimmers. Among styles there were greater differences in time (η2 = 0.47, F = 94.50, p < 0.001) and transition distance (η2 = 0.38, F = 67.08, p < 0.001), than in speed (η2 = 0.05, F = 5.63, p < 0.001). During the backstroke push-off, swimmers spent more time (0.88 ± 0.04 s) and distance (1.17 ± 0.05 m), this being the slowest style (1.37 ± 0.04 m/s). In butterfly, athletes used less time (0.26 ± 0.03 s) and distance (0.39 ± 0.05 m) whereas crawl was the fastest of all (1.57 ± 0.04 m/s). These results allow the phase of transition from underwater to surface swimming to be characterized and to provide useful data for competitive swimmers and coaches to improve performance.

Turn Fast and Win: The Importance of Acyclic Phases in Top-Elite Female Swimmers

“…During traditional training programs, with a high volume of low-intensity swimming, numerous turns are performed in each session [ 19 , 25 ]. However, timing when approaching the pool wall, body rotation, take-off angle, transition from wall push-off to underwater, and subsequent free-swimming phase are specific to the actual swim velocity [ 22 , 26 ]. In order to develop these kinematic aspects and prepare for competitions, training programs should involve a substantial amount of race-pace-specific drills designed to improve turn performance.…”

The effect of the start and finish in the 50 m and 100 m freestyle performance in elite male swimmers

“…Studies indicated that in 100 m events, swimmers reaching faster underwater speeds had a meaningful advantage on swimming start, and consequently on the final race times (Olstad et al, 2020;Sánchez et al, 2021). Other studies focused on understanding the undulatory swimming (Wadrzyk et al, 2021) or the transition from the underwater phase to surface swim (Stosic et al, 2021;Trinidad et al, 2020). Overall, for the front crawl stroke (i.e.…”

“…That said, swimmers are advised to keep in the underwater phase as the underwater speed is faster than clean swim. Thus, knowing the best moment to shift from the underwater to surface swim stroke is of paramount importance for any swimmers who are willing to enhance the start performance (Trinidad et al, 2020).…”

Transition phase – A new phase from start/turn to free swimming in competitive swimmers

“…Intra-observer reliability was confirmed by checking the agreement when repeatably coding (10 times) the same pre-transition and transition phases in separate weeks (ICC: 0.998). Furthermore, the validity of distance measurements was checked by reconstructing distances within the control space in a known length segment with a root mean square error lower than 0.015 m. These data were in line with previous researches on two dimensional analysis of underwater swimming (Trinidad, Veiga, Navarro, & Lorenzo, 2020).…”