The role of the upper and lower limbs in front crawl swimming: The thoughts and practices of expert high-performance swimming coaches

Abstract

The perceptions of high-performance swimming coaches regarding the relative contribution of the upper and lower limbs are crucial in optimising athletic performance through subsequent prescription of training. Problematically, examination of these perspectives is lacking. To develop knowledge in this area, perceptions regarding the upper and lower limb velocity and metabolic contributions and reasoning surrounding whole body, arms-only and legs-only training prescription (referred to as swim, pull and kick, respectively) were garnered from seven male expert swimming coaches. The semi-structured interviews were transcribed verbatim by the lead researcher. Thematically analysed through open and axial-coding, results revealed that all coaches believed the upper limbs were the primary velocity generators but placed great importance on having well-conditioned muscles of the lower limbs. All coaches identified multiple interrelated parameters contributing to velocity generation and metabolic cost. In a typical training week, coaches allocate, on average, 58% (40–85%), 19% (0–30%) and 22% (10–40%) of the total training volume to swim, pull and kick training, respectively. All training prescription was based on anecdotal evidence and personal experience. Considering the variability in training allocation reported by these high-performance coaches, sport scientists and developmental coaches are encouraged to understand how factors such as the distance specialisation of the swimmers, injury status, stroke technique and physiological conditioning status of the upper and lower limb muscles influence the prescription of swim, pull and kick training within a typical training season.

Sports Coaches’ Knowledge and Beliefs About the Provision, Reception, and Evaluation of Verbal Feedback

“…For the purpose of the study, this was defined as a professional national-level league or international representative (i.e., national team) setting. This definition is broadly consistent with similar previous studies that have sought to investigate high performance coaches (Rynne and Mallett, 2012;Morris et al, 2019). The sampling procedure was aligned with a purposeful sampling approach (Creswell, 2013), to ensure that expert coaches who have experience with a high-performance team sport environment could provide insight into the research questions.…”

“…Coaches are thought to require strong procedural knowledge about the pedagogical strategies required to help athletes learn effectively (Nash and Collins, 2006) in addition to possessing specific knowledge about their sport. Recent studies have investigated the knowledge of coaches regarding sport-specific topics such as resistance training (Harden et al, 2019), swimming technique (Morris et al, 2019), and talent identification (Roberts et al, 2019). However, a major gap in this growing body of literature about coach knowledge concerns the use of pedagogical techniques such as feedback in coach practice.…”

Contemporary practices of high-performance swimming coaches on pacing skill development and competition preparation

“…While coaches are required to undertake professional development activities such as educational workshops, it appears that coach beliefs and practices regarding pacing are heavily influenced by previous experiences and the experiences of other coaches. 26 This is not surprising given the lack of scientific evidence currently available on pacing skill development in swimming. 2,27 It appears that some coaches place too much emphasis on overall time as opposed to the process of achieving that time in terms of efficiency and race specificity.…”

Investigation of Factors Related to Sport-Specific Compulsory Element Execution in Artistic Swimming

“…This study demonstrated (similar to [ 22 ]) that arm strength plays an important role in this sport, as shown in the correlation between the AS element scores and HGS. Grip strength positively correlated with faster sprint swimming performance in both master and elite level swimmers, and improved grip strength resulted in faster sprint freestyle swimming [ 36 ]. Similar to upper limb strength, lower limb also plays a crucial role in AS performance.…”