Relationship of physical characteristics, power and swimming time in sprint swimmers

Short distance sprint swimming is a sport which requires production of high intensity force in a relatively short period of time. Thus it depends on the power developed by both the upper and lower limbs, especially in short distance events. On the other hand, swimming performance is a multifactorial phenomenon involving energetics, biomechanics, hydrodynamics, strength parameters and anthropometrics. There are four different style of swimming which have different requirements as per the technique in terms of power and the anthropometric characteristics. The present study evaluated the relationship of physical characteristics, power and swimming time in sprint swimmers. A total of 118 competitive sprint swimmers boys (n=64), girls (n=54) aged 9-17 years, with at least 1 year of swimming experience were chosen. They underwent anthropometric testing followed by power testing of the upper and lower extremities and finally the recording of the 50m sprint swimming time in their respective strokes. In results, statistically significant positive correlations (p<0.001) were found between the physical characteristic variables with the upper and lower extremity power and significant negative correlations (p<0.001) with swimming time. Also statistically significant negative correlations (p<0.001) were found between the swimming time with the upper and lower extremity power. It may be concluded that the physical characteristics were positively correlated with the muscular power and negatively correlated with the swimming time. Also the swimming time was negatively correlated with the muscular power.