Cardiorespiratory responses during flume swimming and treadmill running in swimmers

Abstract

The present study was designed to compare cardiorespiratory responses of swimmers to swimming and running. Six male trained college swimmers performed maximal work test (progressive method) in flume swimming and treadmill running. VEmax during swimming (128.3 +/- 20.6 l/min) was about 4% lower than during running (133.2 +/- 9.9 l/min). VO2max during swimming (3628 +/- 228 ml/min) was significantly higher than during running (3408 +/- 222 ml/min). HRmax during swimming (191 +/- 8 beats/min) was significantly lower than during running (198 +/- 6 beats/min). VO2 at ventilatory threshold (VT) during swimming (2177 +/- 183 ml/min) was significantly higher than during running (1699 +/- 214 ml/min). %VO2max at VT during swimming (60.1 +/- 4.2%) was significantly about 10% higher than during running (49.8 +/- 4.4%). These results suggest that subjects of this study have specific cardiorespiratory adaptation to swimming from a long period of swim training.