Variability of competition results during one season in swimming

Clephas, Christoph; Wilhelm, Andreas

doi:10.1007/s12662-018-0563-7

Cited by 6 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Preparatory races of minor importance, for which athletes were not fully tapered and prepared for, may have caused results below the swimmers' current personal best times. This could explain the difference in current findings compared to previously reported lower performance variation for better athletes [9] and the peaking phase [6,8]. Additionally, conclusions drawn from mixed samples of males and females may not reflect performance variation in elite female swimmers.…”

Section: Plos Onecontrasting

confidence: 84%

“…In previous studies, variability in competition performance decreased during the preparatory phase leading up to the seasonal main event [6,8]. While better athletes generally showed Table 3.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 76%

“…Previous studies analyzed race results and performance variations throughout the Olympic cycle [6], within the preparatory phase for the seasonal main event [7,8], and between and within single competitions [7,9]. It has been shown that performance became more stable leading up to the Olympics [6] and that better athletes demonstrated less variation in performance between competitions [9,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors concluded that swimmers are stroke rather than distance specific, and associated these findings with the high technical demand of swimming. However, it remains unclear whether performance variation differs across the various swimming strokes and race distances [7][8][9][10]. However, in most studies significant effects were missing and only marginal differences were reported.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variation in competition performance, number of races, and age: Long-term athlete development in elite female swimmers

2020

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While talent development and the contributing factors to success are hardly discussed among the experts in the field, the aim of the study was to investigate annual variation in competition performance (AVCP), number of races per year, and age, as potential success factors for international swimming competitions. Data from 40’277 long-course races, performed by all individual female starters (n = 253) at the 2018 European Swimming Championships (2018EC) for all 10 years prior to these championships, were analyzed. Relationships between 2018EC ranking and potential success factors, i.e., AVCP, number of races per year, and age, were determined using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analysis. While AVCP was not related to ranking, higher ranked swimmers at the 2018EC swam more races during each of the ten years prior to the championships (P < 0.001). Additionally, older athletes were more successful (r = -0.42, P < 0.001). The regression model explained highly significant proportions (P < 0.001) and 43%, 34%, 35%, 49% of total variance in the 2018EC ranking for 50m, 100m, 200m, and 400m races, respectively. As number of races per year (β = -0.29 –-0.40) had a significant effect on ranking of 50-400m races, and age (β = -0.40 –-0.61) showed a significant effect on ranking over all race distances, number of races per year and age may serve as success factors for international swimming competitions. The larger number of races swum by higher ranked female swimmers may have aided long-term athlete development regarding technical, physiological, and mental skill acquisitions. As older athletes were more successful, female swimmers under the age of peak performance, who did not reach semi-finals or finals, may increase their chances of success in following championships with increased experience.

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Section: Plos Onecontrasting

confidence: 84%

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 76%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Variation in competition performance, number of races, and age: Long-term athlete development in elite female swimmers

2020

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“…Further, Pyne et al (2004) calculated a between competition performance Years) 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Female-Short Course 50 m Backstroke 77 77 75 76 76 75 75 82 75 84 49 100 m Backstroke 71 80 83 77 82 78 75 88 75 80 71 200 m Backstroke 23 79 86 82 75 77 77 80 76 80 51 Female-Long Course 50 m Backstroke 70 82 75 80 80 79 81 75 85 81 67 100 m Backstroke 62 85 84 79 80 86 83 84 81 79 variation of 0.8%; 0.73-0.86%, with data from 51 Olympic level swimmers. Interestingly, a more recent study of 19 elite swimmers during their 8 months build up to the Rio Olympics reported variations of between ∼0.7-0.5% with greater variation for sprinters compared to middle distance swimmers and males compared to females (Clephas and Wilhelm, 2019). As evidenced above, researchers recognize the importance of quantifying competition-to-competition variability in swimming performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Improvement and Variability of Adolescent Backstroke Swimming Performance by Age

Alshdokhi

Petersen

Clarke

2020

Front. Sports Act. Living

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To predict future performance, coaches rely on their previous experiences with a relatively small number of adolescent competitive swimmers to estimate the rate of improvement. The purpose of this study is to quantify the annual change in competition performance as backstroke swimmers mature. Data from 2006 to 2017 provided 9,956 swimming years of accumulated data which was used to estimate the rate of improvement of male and female backstroke swimmers as they aged from 8 to 18 years. Swimming performance improved rapidly between 8 and 13 years, and improvements diminished as swimmers approached their performance potential around 18 years old. These results provide accurate age-based progression data for adolescent backstroke swimmers, providing baseline performance prediction for coaches to predict future performance as swimmers mature, and providing a measure against which potential improvements from novel coaching and training methods can be objectively evaluated.

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Analysis of the competition programmes of elite and sub-elite swimmers: The influence of sex, stroke and race distance

Johns,

Philipson,

Powell

2023

International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching

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The purpose of this study was to analyse contemporary performance data in elite and sub-elite Irish swimmers, to explore the number of days and races required for swimmers to achieve their fastest competitive performances and how this may be influenced by sex, stroke and race distance. The initial dataset consisted of n = 3930 observations on n = 56 swimmers, with n1 = 2709 (68.9%) long course (LC) observations and n2 = 1221 (31.1%) short course (SC) observations. The main findings indicated that, firstly, the swimmers (LC & SC) produced their fastest swim in their first race of the season, approximately 39% of the time. Secondly, there were no significant differences between male and female swimmers regarding the number of days and races required to achieve their fastest performances. The final key finding identified the number of days and races between first and fastest performance was influenced by (a) stroke, for example, LC and SC freestyle and individual medley swimmers required less races and shorter timeframes to fastest swim, with breaststroke requiring the greatest number of mean days in LC and SC formats and (b) race distance, for example, across LC and SC, 400 m swimmers required fewer races (n = 1.83 & 1.64) and shorter time frame (n = 24.83 & 21.26 days) to fastest swim than other distances. These findings are valuable to coaches and practitioners, as (a) they can provide guidelines when designing competition programmes, and (b) support exploration of what a swimmer's competition may look like in terms of volume and duration to support the fastest performance.

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Variability of competition results during one season in swimming

Cited by 6 publications

References 10 publications

Variation in competition performance, number of races, and age: Long-term athlete development in elite female swimmers

Variation in competition performance, number of races, and age: Long-term athlete development in elite female swimmers

Improvement and Variability of Adolescent Backstroke Swimming Performance by Age

Analysis of the competition programmes of elite and sub-elite swimmers: The influence of sex, stroke and race distance

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