Modifications of the Arm Coordination in Front Crawl Swimming with Added Resistance

Evaggelia Argiropes, Vassilios Gourgoulis, Nickolaos Aggeloussis, Panagiotis Antoniou, & Georgios Mavridis

Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Hellas

Abstract

The aim of the research was to investigate possible modifications on the arm coordination in female front crawl swimmers, during swimming with added resistance. Ten female swimmers swam at a maximal intensity 25m without and with added resistance, which was applied by a bowl with a diameter of 35cm and capacity of 6.5 lt. Four S-VHS cameras were used to record the underwater motion of both arms and the digitizing of selected points onto the subject’s body was undertaken using the Ariel Performance Analysis System. The mean swimming velocity, the stroke length, the stroke rate, the index of coordination (IdC) and the absolute and relative duration of the separate phases of the stroke were calculated. For the statistical treatment of the data the t-test for dependent samples was used. When swimming with added resistance the mean swimming velocity (t9 = 34.85, p< .05), the stroke length (t9 = 14.92, p< .05) and the stroke rate (t9 = 7.94, p< .05) were significantly decreased, while the index of coordination significantly increased (t9 = 8.04, p< .05), because of the increase of the relative duration of the whole propulsive phase (t9= 13.20, p< .05) and the decrease of the relative duration of the non propulsive phase (t9= 13.20,p< .05). These results revealed that in front crawl swimming with added resistance the pattern of arm-coordination is modified, as the time interval between the propulsive phases from the two arms is decreased and the time of the application of propulsive forces is increased.

Keywords: swimming, front crawl, added resistance, index of coordination