Impact of Course Length on Swimming Performance Across Age Groups and Swimming Strokes

Javier Iglesias García^1,2Dr. Francisco Hermosilla Perona^3,4*Tomohiro Gonjo⁵Daniel Juárez²

• ¹AExPH. Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas y de la Salud, Alfonso X el Sabio University, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
• ²Sport Training Laboratory, University of Castilla-La Mancha,, Toledo, Spain
• ³Alfonso X el Sabio University, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
• ⁴Facultad de Ciencias de la Vida y la Naturaleza, Universidad Nebrija,, Madrid, Asturias, Spain
• ⁵Institute for Life and Earth Sciences, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, United Kingdom

Introduction: Swimmers typically achieve faster times in the same distance events in short course (SC) than in long course (LC) due to the higher number of turns in SC; however, the influence of age and sex on performance differences between SC and LC events remains unclear. Methods: This study aimed to examine the differences in the top 200 seasonal times between SC and LC in the 50, 100 and 200 m backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle and individual medley events (200 and 400 m). Top 200 Spanish seasonal times of four age groups were considered for both sexes between two seasons. A three-way ANOVA with post-hoc analysis was performed to assess the impact of age, sex, and event type on the time differences between SC and LC. Results: The results indicated that older swimmers showed greater differences between SC and LC times compared to other age groups in males and females (p<0.05). In backstroke and breaststroke events, similar patterns were observed with higher differences between SC and LC compared to butterfly and freestyle, especially in 100 m and 200 m events (p<0.05). Discussion: These differences should be taken into consideration by coaches and swimmers when establishing differences in performance depending on the pool length.