STANDARDIZATION OF SPECIFIC PROTOCOLS FOR AEROBIC AND ANAEROBIC EVALUATION OF PARALYMPIC SWIMMERS

• Grant number: 23/08653-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2023
• End date: March 04, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Physical Education
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Papoti
• Grantee: Gian Marco Rechetelo dos Santos
• Host Institution: Escola de Educação Física e Esporte de Ribeirão Preto (EEFERP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/04151-8 - Physiological responses and performance in different speed-based training series in swimmers, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Introduction: The specific and continuous evaluation of performance parameters in swimming, contribute to the decision-making process in training progress and performance maximization. However, the measurement of aerobic and anaerobic parameters in Paralympic swimmers is still limited to laboratory environments and/or the adaptation of protocols developed for conventional swimming. In this sense, there is a growing demand for low-cost and easy-to-apply assessment protocols that can be used in training. Therefore, the objective of this project will be to standardize specific protocols for aerobic and anaerobic evaluation of Paralympic swimmers. Methods: This project will be divided into two experiments. In experiment I, ten swimmers will perform maximum efforts in crawl swimming of 50m, 400m and a specific series of swimming composed of 4 efforts of 50m, being measured before, during and immediately after the effort, the values of gas exchanges and lactacidemia, to estimation of aerobic and anaerobic contributions. The performance of the efforts will be evaluated by the values of velocity of the efforts, fatigue index of the specific series, anaerobic reserve velocity (ASR), and the mechanical parameters of swimming through the frequency and stroke length. In experiment II, in order to investigate the sensitivity of the protocols to the effects of training, the same procedures will be performed with ten Paralympic swimmers, belonging to the national Elite, before and after a training period that makes up the end of the Olympic/Paralympic cycle for the Paris 2024 Games. After confirmation of normality and homogeneity by the Shapiro-Wilk and Mauchly test respectively, possible associations will be verified by Pearson's correlation and statistical analysis by the most indicated test after normality, followed when necessary by Post-hoc , in all cases, the significance level was pre-set at p<0.05.