Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2000 June;40(2):87-95

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Maximal oxygen uptake and cardiorespiratory response to maximal 400-m free swimming, running and cycling tests in competitive swimmers

Rodríguez F. A.

From the Department of Biomedical Sciences Institut Nacional d’Educació Física de Catalunya Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Background. This ­study com­pared the car­di­o­res­pir­a­to­ry ­response of ­trained swim­mers to 400-m unim­ped­ed ­front ­crawl swim­ming (SW), tread­mill run­ning (TR) and ergom­e­ter ­cycling (EC) max­i­mal exer­cise ­tests, and eval­u­at­ed the valid­ity and spec­i­fic­ity of a meth­od to meas­ure max­i­mal aero­bic pow­er in swim­ming.
Methods. Two ­series of experi­ments ­were con­duct­ed. In ­series A (n=15), com­par­i­sons ­were ­made ­between V.O2­peak and oth­er car­di­o­res­pir­a­to­ry var­i­ables in ­three max­i­mal ­tests: ­after 400-m SW, and dur­ing incre­men­tal TR and EC. In ­series B, V.O2 ­peak and relat­ed var­i­ables ­were meas­ured ­after SW and dur­ing EC (n=33).
Results. No sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­enc­es ­were ­observed ­between V.O2­peak and V.E in the ­three ­modes of exer­cise, ­although SW val­ues tend­ed to be high­er. After SW, max­i­mal ven­til­a­to­ry ­response was char­ac­ter­ized by high­er ­tidal vol­umes (V.T) and low­er res­pir­a­to­ry ­rates (fR) as com­pared ­with TR and EC. The high­est ­heart ­rate val­ues (fH) ­were ­also ­observed in TR, fol­lowed by EC and SW. In ­series B, no sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­enc­es ­were ­observed ­either in ­peak V.O2 or V.E, but fH was ­also low­er in SW.
Conclusions. A max­i­mal 400-m unim­ped­ed free­style SW ­test ­yields essen­tial­ly ­equal or non­sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er ­peak V.O2 and V.E val­ues ­than dur­ing max­i­mal TR or EC ­tests in ­trained swim­mers. The spe­cif­ic max­i­mal car­di­o­res­pir­a­to­ry ­response to the SW ­test is char­ac­ter­ized by high­er VT, low­er fR, and low­er fH. Breath-by-­breath meas­ure­ments dur­ing the imme­di­ate recov­ery ­after a 400-m vol­un­tary max­i­mal ­swim is pro­posed as a val­id and spe­cif­ic ­test for direct­ly meas­ur­ing max­i­mal meta­bol­ic param­e­ters and eval­u­at­ing spe­cif­ic max­i­mal aero­bic pow­er in swim­ming.