| Summary: |
The swimming event is composed by, at least, three technical domains: the start, stroke and turns [1]. In this respect, the start is recognized as a fundamental element in competitive swimming and might discriminate the defeat or victory, especially in short swimming events. However, research was devoted, so far, especially to the study of stroking [2]. The relative reduced number of research enshrined to swimming starts might be related with particular methodological issues, namely due to the necessity of combined implementation aerial and underwater approaches, as regards kinematics, kinetics or electromyography. In 2010, the international body responsible for competitive swimming (FINA) decided important rule changes for swimming starts, apparently unknowing their consequences in swimmers' performance. In fact, the volume of research dedicated to the swimming starts is, in
general, scarce or almost inexistent if it is considered the application of the new rules [3]. In this respect, this project has two main purposes: (i) to develop equipments for detailed and appropriate biomechanical evaluation for both research and advice purposes, and (ii) to update the specific scientific knowledge related to the swimming starts performance in three contexts: (i) individual swimming starts for ventral events, (ii) ventral starts specific for relays, and (iii) dorsal starts. The first purpose consists in to develop and validate an innovative methodology for relevant biomechanics parameters acquisition during swimming starts. This project is
related to the development of an integrate unit of hardware and software, which involves a starting block instrumented with five force plates and prehensile sensors to independently analyze the kinetic components from the two lower (LL) and upper (UL) limbs, and two underwater force plates for kinetic analyzes of the separately actions of the two LL. The second purpose consists in to detailed analyze the advantages and disadvant  |
Summary
The swimming event is composed by, at least, three technical domains: the start, stroke and turns [1]. In this respect, the start is recognized as a fundamental element in competitive swimming and might discriminate the defeat or victory, especially in short swimming events. However, research was devoted, so far, especially to the study of stroking [2]. The relative reduced number of research enshrined to swimming starts might be related with particular methodological issues, namely due to the necessity of combined implementation aerial and underwater approaches, as regards kinematics, kinetics or electromyography. In 2010, the international body responsible for competitive swimming (FINA) decided important rule changes for swimming starts, apparently unknowing their consequences in swimmers' performance. In fact, the volume of research dedicated to the swimming starts is, in
general, scarce or almost inexistent if it is considered the application of the new rules [3]. In this respect, this project has two main purposes: (i) to develop equipments for detailed and appropriate biomechanical evaluation for both research and advice purposes, and (ii) to update the specific scientific knowledge related to the swimming starts performance in three contexts: (i) individual swimming starts for ventral events, (ii) ventral starts specific for relays, and (iii) dorsal starts. The first purpose consists in to develop and validate an innovative methodology for relevant biomechanics parameters acquisition during swimming starts. This project is
related to the development of an integrate unit of hardware and software, which involves a starting block instrumented with five force plates and prehensile sensors to independently analyze the kinetic components from the two lower (LL) and upper (UL) limbs, and two underwater force plates for kinetic analyzes of the separately actions of the two LL. The second purpose consists in to detailed analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the technical solutions allowed by the new rules for the swimming start performance: the posterior support for the foot in ventral technique and its mobility, the lateral handgrips for UL in the ventral and dorsal techniques, and the emersion of the feet in the initial start position for dorsal events. Moreover the alleged advantages of the in movement in the relay starts will also be studied. Neither of the above-mentioned issues is extensively addressed in scientific literature and the few results presented are conflicting and unconcluded. The most of the biomechanical studies analyzed separately
different technical aspects of swimming starts (kinematics, kinetics and electromyography), and only some of them used some integrated approaches (c.f.[4]). Complementarily, most of the studies dedicated to compared only two or three ventral techniques using motion-analysis based on bidimensional kinematics, while the kinetic studies have considered analyzing the overall force performed by the LL, neglecting the real contribution of each one. In addition, the number o studies that considered the kinetics of the UL for ventral and dorsal starts is basically scarce (e.g. [4,6]) and none yet considered the contribution of each UL separately in the several possibilities offered by the new starting block authorized by FINA. Additionally, few studies have considered the swimming starts in movement during relays [e.g.16]. |