Sprinting to the top: comparing quality of distance variety and specialization between swimmers and runners.
Front Sports Act Living
; 6: 1431594, 2024.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39161627
ABSTRACT
Objectives:
To compare performance progression and variety in race distances of comparable lengths (timewise) between pool swimming and track running. Quality of within-sport variety was determined as the performance differences between individual athletes' main and secondary race distances across (top-) elite and (highly-) trained swimmers and runners.Methods:
A total of 3,827,947 race times were used to calculate performance points (race times relative to the world record) for freestyle swimmers (n = 12,588 males and n = 7,561 females) and track runners (n = 9,230 males and n = 5,841 females). Athletes were ranked based on their personal best at peak performance age, then annual best times were retrospectively traced throughout adolescence.Results:
Performance of world-class swimmers differentiates at an earlier age from their lower ranked peers (15-16 vs. 17-20 year age categories, P < 0.05), but also plateaus earlier towards senior age compared to runners (19-20 vs. 23 + year age category, P < 0.05), respectively. Performance development of swimmers shows a logarithmic pattern, while runners develop linearly. While swimmers compete in more secondary race distances (larger within-sport variety), runners specialize in either sprint, middle- or long-distance early in their career and compete in only 2, 4 or 3 other race distances, respectively. In both sports, sprinters specialize the most (P < 0.05). Distance-variety of middle-distance swimmers covers more longer rather than sprint race distances. Therefore, at peak performance age, (top-) elite female 200â m swimmers show significantly slower sprint performances, i.e., 50â m (P < 0.001) and 100â m (P < 0.001), but not long-distance performances, i.e., 800â m (P = 0.99) and 1,500â m (P = 0.99). In contrast, (top-) elite female 800â m middle-distance runners show significantly slower performances in all their secondary race distances (P < 0.001). (Top-) elite female athletes specialize more than (highly-) trained athletes in both sports (P < 0.05).Conclusions:
The comparison to track running and lower ranked swimmers, the early performance plateau towards senior age, and the maintenance of a large within-sport distance variety indicates that (top-) elite sprint swimmers benefit from greater within-sport specialization.
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article