Effects of hand paddle on intra-abdominal pressure during front crawl swimming.

Purpose: The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of hand paddles on intra-abdominal pressure during submaximal front crawl swimming. Methods: The subjects were seven highly trained competitive collegiate male swimmers (1.75±0.05 m, 70.5±3.9 kg). Experiments were carried out in a swimming flume. The water flow rate was set at 1.4 m-s^-1 and the subjects performed front crawl swimming with (P) and without hand paddles (NP). Intra-abdominal pressure was taken as the difference between minimum and maximum values using the mean of 6 stable front crawl stroke cycles. Results: There were no significant differences in stroke rate (P, 0.64±0.08 Hz! NP, 0.71±0.10 Hz), stroke length (P, 2.21±0.27 ml NP, 2.01±0.25 m) and intra-abdominal pressure (P, 1.17±0.26 kPa! NP, 1.24±0.37 kPa) between conditions. Discussion: These results suggest that the hand paddles do not influence intra-abdominal pressure in submaximal swimming. Because drag would be the same in both conditions with and without hand paddles at the same swimming velocity, stroke rate and length, the load to the trunk muscles would not differ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]