Kinematic analysis of the kick start from OSB12

Introduction: Start performance in swimming plays a major role in determining the final standings, especially in sprint races. The purpose of the study was to determine kinematic parameters underlying the kick start from OSB12 in terms of the kick plate position and shoulder positioning at the start. Material and methods: The sample included 8 non-randomly recruited performance-level swimmers whose average age, body height, and body weight was 17.4 ± 1.8 years, 182.2 ± 3.4 cm and 81.00 ± 3.9 kg, respectively. To measure the kinematic parameters, we used the SwimPro camera system. The parameter rs measured included angular parameters and kinematic parameters for each of the start phases: block phase, flight phase, and water phase. We processed the collected biomechanical data using the Statistica 12.0 software. To determine significant differences between the kick plate positions in three types of start, we applied the Mann-Whitney U test. Results: We found significant differences (p