Undulatory Underwater Swimming Performance and Kinematics: International- vs National-Level Female Swimmers

Jesús J. Ruiz-Navarro, Adrián Febles-Castro, Óscar López-Belmonte, Francisco Cuenca-Fernández, Raúl Arellano

2025

Abstract

This study aimed to compare undulatory underwater swimming (UUS) performance and kinematics between international- and national-level female swimmers. Seven international level female swimmers (18.9 ± 3.4 years; 67.2 ± 4.4 kg of body mass; 175 ± 4.8 cm of body height; and 804 ± 35 World Aquatics points) and seven national level female swimmers (17.6 ± 1.7 years; 57.4 ± 4.1 kg of body mass; 166 ± 4.9 cm of body height; and 662 ± 65 World Aquatics points) performed three maximal-effort 15 m UUS trials. Seven body landmarks were auto-digitalized during UUS by a pre-trained neural network and 21 kinematic variables were calculated. The results showed no statistically significant differences across the variables analysed (p > 0.05); however, mean and minimum UUS velocities showed a clear trend toward better performance in internationallevel swimmers (p = 0.055–0.057; d = 0.91–0.92). In conclusion, there was a tendency for superior UUS performance among international-level swimmers compared to national-level swimmer. Furthermore, variations in UUS technique appear to be more strongly influenced by individual physical and anatomical characteristics than by performance level alone.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Ruiz-Navarro J., Febles-Castro A., López-Belmonte Ó., Cuenca-Fernández F. and Arellano R. (2025). Undulatory Underwater Swimming Performance and Kinematics: International- vs National-Level Female Swimmers. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support - Volume 1: icSPORTS; ISBN 978-989-758-771-9, SciTePress, pages 110-115. DOI: 10.5220/0013821400003988

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icsports25,
author={Jesús Ruiz-Navarro and Adrián Febles-Castro and Óscar López-Belmonte and Francisco Cuenca-Fernández and Raúl Arellano},
title={Undulatory Underwater Swimming Performance and Kinematics: International- vs National-Level Female Swimmers},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support - Volume 1: icSPORTS},
year={2025},
pages={110-115},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013821400003988},
isbn={978-989-758-771-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support - Volume 1: icSPORTS
TI - Undulatory Underwater Swimming Performance and Kinematics: International- vs National-Level Female Swimmers
SN - 978-989-758-771-9
AU - Ruiz-Navarro J.
AU - Febles-Castro A.
AU - López-Belmonte Ó.
AU - Cuenca-Fernández F.
AU - Arellano R.
PY - 2025
SP - 110
EP - 115
DO - 10.5220/0013821400003988
PB - SciTePress