The aim of the present paper was to survey the state of the art on swimming physiology as related to coaching practice in order to help bridging the gap between theory and practice. Systematic literature searches were performed through the years 1990 – 2006 utilising EBSCOhost Research Databases and SportDiscus. Ovid Medline was used to scan materials for randomized controlled trials. The searc...

An alarming number of drownings occur in lifeguarded swimming areas, where one might presume swimmers are protected from injury. One reason drownings occur in lifeguarded swimming areas is because lifeguard surveillance is a highly difficult task. Observational research suggests lifeguards are usually alert, but researchers also report egregious examples of inattention. We offer three strategie...

BACKGROUNDS/AIMS Obese rats obtained by neonatal monosodium glutamate (MSG) administration present insulin hypersecretion. The metabolic mechanism by which glucose catabolism is coupled to insulin secretion in the pancreatic β-cells from MSG-treated rats is understood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate glucose metabolism in pancreatic islets from MSG-treated rats subjected to swimming t...

l-Arginine (l-Arg) supplementation has been shown to enhance physical exercise capacity and delay onset of fatigue. This work investigated the potential beneficial mechanism(s) of l-Arg supplementation by examining its effect on the cellular oxidative and nitrosative stress pathways in the exercised rats. Forty-eight rats were randomly divided into six groups: sedentary control; sedentary contr...

The aim of this study was to investigate changes in immunoreactivity of Ras and Raf-1 in lung epithelial cells of rats exposed to carcinogen NNK after swimming training. 50 Wistar rats were randomly divided into five groups: control, training, training + NNK, NNK and sham. NNK-induced groups received NNK Subcutaneously once a week at a dose of 12/5 mg per kg body weight for 12 weeks. The exerci...

BACKGROUND Inspiratory muscle training has been shown to improve performance in elite swimmers, when used as part of routine training, but its use as a respiratory warm-up has yet to be investigated. AIM To determine the influence of inspiratory muscle exercise (IME) as a respiratory muscle warm-up in a randomised controlled cross-over trial. METHODS A total of 15 elite swimmers were assign...

OBJECTIVES The beneficial and more potent role of exercise to prevent heart apoptosis in ovariectomized rats has been known. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of swimming training on cardiac expression of Bcl-2, and Mir-133 levels and glycogen changes in the myocyte. MATERIALS AND METHODS Forty animals were separated into four groups as control, sham, ovariectomy (OVX) and ovar...

Different exercise modules and yogic practices have been claimed to reduce anxiety. However, there are very few longitudinal studies to assess and to compare improvement in mental health of subjects performing yogic asanas and breathing exercises versus those performing endurance exercises like swimming. Therefore, present study was designed to compare reduction in anxiety levels with yogic pos...

Altitude/hypoxic training is nowadays a common practice among swimmers although its benefits are still controversial in scientific literature. Traditional altitude training (“live high-train high”) is still the most frequently used method in swimming, even though from a physiological perspective the “live high-train low” strategy appears to be a more promising alternative. While acute hypoxia d...