Consequences of drafting on human locomotion: benefits on sports performance.

In many endurance sports, a large part of an athlete’s external power is used to overcome drag. This force has 3 components: friction, pressure, and, in swimming, wave drag. When the athlete’s velocity is very low, friction drag dominates. In normal sports activities, pressure drag dominates, but frictional drag is influential in the velocity range in which the airstream changes from laminar to turbulent, which on the other hand depends on the roughness of the athlete’s clothing. The term drafting is mainly used in sports physiology and biomechanics to describe the tactic of performing a mode of activity in a sheltered position. The growing success and impact of selected endurance sports in which athletes could take advantage of drafting has generated questions on the physiological characteristics and mechanisms regulating human locomotion in sports such as running, cycling, short-track skating, swimming, and triathlon. An athlete who drafts continuously during a race might achieve a better final placing than would normally be expected with his or her individual physiological capacities. For this reason, many athletes attempt to position themselves behind athletes of the same or slightly better ability.