Effects of Swimming on Vision

This study was conducted to examine the effects of different types of swimming on vision, including contrast sensitivity, depth perception, static visual acuity, number of eyeblinks, and pain scale. Six college water-polo players swam (A) at a water flow rate of 0 m•Esec-1 with floating, (B) at 0.83•}0.04 m•Esec-1 with floating, (C) at 1.09•}0.05 m•sec-1 with floating, (D) at 0.83•}0.04 m•Esec-1 doing the front crawl (50%VO2max), and (E) at 1.09•}0.05 m•sec-1 doing the front crawl (80%•¬O2max) for 15 min on a swimmill. To avoid the effect by chlorine, the free radical residual chlorine concentration was fixed at 0 ppm in the swimmill. We found no significant differences in vision before and after A. On the other hand, contrast sensitivity during the test decreased significantly in C and E (p•ƒ0.05). Depth perception and num ber of eyeblinks increased significantly in C and E (p•ƒ0.05) . Subjects had a high pain scale in C and E (p•ƒ0.01). Thus it seems that water flow may disturb of vision. We conclude that it is impor. tant for swimmers to prevent impairment of vision. (Jpn. J. Phys. Sports Med. 1999, 48 : 403.412) key words : swimming, vision, water flow rate, exercise intensity.