Investigation of Apnea Turn at butterfly and breast stroke race

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify a characteristic ofApnea Turnwhich is a new turning method under water and to compare with a conventional turning method,Open Turn. The subjects were elite competitive swimmers (n=10), whose specialties were butterfly and breast stroke. The turn phase was defined as a section from 5m front the wall and 5m after the wall. As results, the time of turn phase revealed that Apnea Turn tends to be shorter than Open Turn (5.55 0.27s and 5.620.33s respectively). The time of turn-in-phase and turnout phase of turn phase in Apnea Turn was shorter than Open Turn, but pivot phase was significantly longer than Open Turn. The push-off velocity of Apnea Turn was higher than Open Turn significantly (p<0.01). These results suggest that Apnea Turn will be able to contribute to improve the swimming performance and then it may become prospective a new turning method. Therefore, this Apnea Turn will be a new turning method. For future studies, it is important to investigate the motion of pivot and to reduction in pivot phase.