Repeatability and application of tethered swimming tests for recreational swimmers

Tethered swimming tests are applied to evaluate propulsive forces in crawl stroke and may also be used to evaluate force applied by the movement of lower (leg kicking) and upper limbs (arm stroke). Considering the large number of recreational swimmers, this tool may be useful for coaches to evaluate the technique and force production by swimmers. As little attention has been paid to the application of these tests with recreational swimmers, the aims of this study were to verify the repeatability of the tethered swimming test for arm stroke, leg kicking and crawl stroke and to verify the relationship between performance in a 50-m test and in the tethered test with recreational swimmers. In this case, repeatability was defined as the agreement between the results of two successive evaluations. Ten male swimmers performed two 30-s maximal intensity tethered swimming tests with leg kicking, arm stroke and crawl stroke and three 50-m crawl stroke tests. Repeatability was found for mean force of all tests and for impulse evaluated in crawl stroke. Inverse relationship of the time to complete 50 m with the maximum and mean forces and with the impulse in the crawl stroke and an inverse relationship between time to complete 50 m and the mean force in the leg kicking were observed. Therefore, results from full tethered swimming tests applied with recreational swimmers may help swimming coaches.