Pacing the phasing of leg and arm movements in breaststroke swimming to minimize intra-cyclic velocity fluctuations

In swimming propelling efficiency is partly determined by intra-cyclic velocity fluctuations. The higher these fluctuations are at a given average swimming velocity, the less efficient is the propulsion. This study explored whether the leg-arm coordination (i.e. phase relation ϕ) within the breastst...

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Veröffentlicht in:PloS one 2017-10, Vol.12 (10), p.e0186160-e0186160
Hauptverfasser: van Houwelingen, Josje, Roerdink, Melvyn, Huibers, Alja V, Evers, Lotte L W, Beek, Peter J
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:In swimming propelling efficiency is partly determined by intra-cyclic velocity fluctuations. The higher these fluctuations are at a given average swimming velocity, the less efficient is the propulsion. This study explored whether the leg-arm coordination (i.e. phase relation ϕ) within the breaststroke cycle can be influenced with acoustic pacing, and whether the so induced changes are accompanied by changes in intra-cyclic velocity fluctuations. Twenty-six participants were asked to couple their propulsive leg and arm movements to a double-tone metronome beat and to keep their average swimming velocity constant over trials. The metronome imposed five different phase relations ϕi (90, 135, 180, 225 and 270°) of leg-arm coordination. Swimmers adjusted their technique under the influence of the metronome, but failed to comply to the velocity requirement for ϕ = 90 and 135°. For imposed ϕ = 180, 225 and 270°, the intra-cyclic velocity fluctuations increased with increasing ϕ, while average swimming velocity did not differ. This suggests that acoustic pacing may be used to adjust ϕ and thereby performance of breaststroke swimming given the dependence of propelling efficiency on ϕ.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0186160