Differences in Race Characteristics between World-Class Individual-Medley and Stroke-Specialist Swimmers

Area of Science:

• Sports Science
• Biomechanics
• Swimming Performance Analysis

Background:

• Individual medley (IM) swimming requires proficiency across four strokes.
• Understanding stroke-specific biomechanics is crucial for optimizing IM performance.
• Elite swimmers often specialize, creating potential performance gaps in IM events.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare biomechanical parameters of elite individual medley swimmers against stroke specialists.
• To identify specific stroke deficiencies in individual medley swimmers compared to specialists.
• To provide evidence-based recommendations for improving individual medley training.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 80 elite 200m individual medley races from the 2021 European Championships.
• Utilized eight-camera digital video analysis to capture underwater and clean-swimming metrics.
• Compared IM swimmers' lap data against stroke specialists using independent-sample t-tests and ANOVA.

Main Results:

• Breaststroke specialists demonstrated superior clean-swimming speed and distance per stroke compared to IM swimmers (males and females).
• Backstroke and front crawl specialists exhibited significantly faster underwater speeds than IM swimmers.
• Females showed faster relative clean-swimming butterfly speeds and underwater breaststroke speeds than males.

Conclusions:

• Individual medley swimmers should prioritize breaststroke training, focusing on enhancing distance per stroke.
• Stroke specialists outperform IM swimmers in specific stroke disciplines, indicating areas for targeted IM training.
• Sex-based differences exist in specific stroke segments, suggesting potential for sex-specific training approaches.