Body Composition Relationship to Performance, Cardiorespiratory Profile, and Tether Force in Youth Trained Swimmers.
Mário Cunha EspadaCátia C FerreiraJosé Martín GamonalesVíctor Hernández-BeltránDanilo Alexandre MassiniAnderson G MacedoTiago André Freire AlmeidaEliane A CastroDalton Müller Pessôa FilhoPublished in: Life (Basel, Switzerland) (2023)
This study sought to analyze the relationship between regional body composition, swimming performance, and aerobic and force profile determined through tethered swimming in well-trained swimmers. Eleven male and five female swimmers were involved in the study and underwent the following evaluations: (1) body composition, assessed by the dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry method (DXA); (2) swimming performance, determined for 200, 400, 800, and 1.500 m front-crawl swimming; (3) a tethered swimming force test to determine maximum and mean force (F max and F mean ); and (4) an incremental tethered swimming test for the aerobic profile determination of the swimmers. Oxygen uptake (VO 2 ) was directly measured by an automatic and portable system (K4b 2 Cosmed, Italy). The fat-free mass (lean mass + bone mineral content, LM+BMC) in lower and upper limbs (UL_LM+BMC: 6.74 ± 1.57 kg and LL_LM+BMC: 20.15 ± 3.84 kg) positively correlated with all indexes of aerobic conditioning level, showing higher coefficients to the indexes representing the ability to perform at high aerobic intensities (VO 2max : 49.2 ± 5.9 mL·kg -1 ·min -1 and respiratory compensation point (RCP): 43.8 ± 6.0 mL·kg -1 ·min -1 ), which attained 0.82 and 0.81 (with VO 2max ), 0.81 and 0.80 (with RCP). The S 200 (1.48 ± 0.13 m·s -1 ) was significantly correlated to Trunk_LM+BMC (r = 0.74), UL_LM+BMC (r = 0.72), Total_LM+BMC (r = 0.71), and LL_LM+BMC (r = 0.64). This study highlights that regional body composition plays an important role in swimming, and body segment analysis should be considered instead of the total body. Tethered swimming may represent a useful method for force and aerobic assessment, aiming at training control and performance enhancement.