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BIOMECHANICAL SUPPORT FOR ELITE COMPETITIVE SWIMMING WITHIN AUSTRALIA
Bruce R.Mason Ph.D. F.I.S.B.S.
Appsen Company, Brogo, NSW, Australia, E-Mail: BruceRobertMason@hotmail.com
INTRODUCTION
Biomechanical support for elite competitive swimming
within Australia falls basically into two distinct categories.
The first of these is in a servicing role in which the
biomechanist works directly with the swimmers in an
attempt to enhance performance. Such servicing is usually
conducted together with the coach, at the request of the
coach, and it usually occurs in a training environment. Most
of the elite swimming servicing in Australia is performed
within the national or state institutes of sport that are
primarily funded by the national or state government [1].
The other form of support is in the area of research
investigation. Research may be of a form to find an answer
to a question which has been raised by coaches. This may be
in the area of hypothesis testing to evaluate a certain
protocol or it may merely be to establish parameters which
will prove valuable to coaches [2,3]. Research of this type
is usually done in the national and state institutes of sport or
in the universities. Another form of research involves the
product development of aquatic analyses equipment systems
which may then be used in a servicing or research role.
Generally research of this type is either performed by the
national or state institute themselves, is contracted out to a
company or university to perform the product development
for the national or state institute or it may be developed by a
private company to manufacture a product which may then
be marketed for a sale. This paper will look at the
development of a system by a private company in Australia
designed to be sold to elite swimming organizations.
METHODS
Biomechanical servicing in an elite swimming environment
generally falls into one of three categories. The first is one
of FREE SWIMMING which may involve looking at the
actions of the swimmer or possibly quantifying the active
drag on the swimmer. The second is the START, TURN and
RELAY CHANGEOVER technique analyses. This involves
analyzing the actions of the swimmer outside of free
swimming. The third is COMPETITION ANALYSES which
provides the coach with information about what has
occurred during actual competition [4]. The competition
analysis is very important as it provides the basis for
evaluating the analysis of FREE SWIMMING and the
START / TURN / RELAY CHANGEOVER analyses.
Examples of each of these three aspects of servicing that are
utilized in Australia will be provided in the presentation.
Research to find an answer to a coach’s question may be
approached in a multitude of ways that are dependent upon
the question being asked. The development of aquatic
biomechanical analysis equipment should be produced with
the following principles in mind. Athlete testing should
involve a duplication of actual competition performance, the
time taken during the analysis should be almost immediate if
possible and available then for review, most of the
parameters should be obtained automatically if possible, the
biomechanical parameters computed should be relevant,
should be presented along with a video replay of the
swimmer’s performance and the system should be
developed such that the coach is able to present the analysis
to the swimmer.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The Australian Institute of Sport’s Aquatic Testing, Training
and Research Unit in 2006, developed a system called
Wetplate [5] designed to analyze starts, turns and relay
changeovers. The system proved to be very popular for the
enhancement in the performances of elite swimmers. Prior
to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, members of the Australian
Swim relay teams used the Wetplate system extensively in
camps to enhance their relay related performances. The
Beijing Olympic Games was the first occasion in Olympics
that the Australian Swim team won a medal in all six relay
events. A major setback of the Wetplate system was that it
was designed for a specific Aquatics laboratory and is
unable to be transported into other pools
The Kistler company in Switzerland teamed up with Appsen
in Australia to develop a Start/Turn/Relay Changeover
swimming analysis system [6]. The PAS-S system was
designed to be able to be installed in almost any training
pool. Kistler developed the instrumented starting block, both
Kistler and Appsen developed the camera and computer
system and Appsen developed the computer software in
PAS-S. While the Wetplate instrumented starting block and
turning wall are both Kistler products there is a big
difference in the structure and weight of the much lighter
PAS-S starting block/turn wall system compared to that of
the heavy Wetplate system that requires a crane to lift it into
position in the pool. Naturally because of the requirement
of being installed in different pools, the camera setup and
software in PAS-S is vastly different to that of Wetplate.
However, there are some similarities in both systems as to
what is displayed on the computer screen during feedback .
CONCLUSIONS
While PAS-S may be installed in an existing pool, if a new
pool is to be built, then it is preferable that adjustments
should be made during the construction phase to incorporate
PAS-S in an improved format within the new pool’s
structure [7].
REFERENCES
1. Mason BMS2010, Oslo, Sweden, Keynote,
Proceedings
2. Mason et al. ISBS2015, Poitiers, France,
Proceedings
3. Mason et al. ISBS2014, Johnson City, USA,
Proceedings
4. Mason et al. Book Chapter, Competition Analysis,
Jan 2012
5. .Mason et al. ISBS2012, Melbourne, Australia,
Proceedings
6. Mason et al. ISBS2016, Tsukuba, Japan,
Proceedings
7. Mason ASIA2016, Tokyo, Japan, Proceedings