Relay change strategies for top swimmers

Project management: Prof. Dr. Armin Kibele, Sebastian Fischer

There are only a few empirical studies on relay changes in swimming in the specialist literature, most of which focus on the movement sequence of the relay start technique. Overall, no significant time advantage could be determined for any of the various relay start techniques compared to the traditional arm swing start. Although variations on the traditional arm swing start technique can be found in the literature and are used by successful nations in international competitions, they are not used in German-speaking countries.
Questions as to whether the intuitively plausible shortening of the changeover time according to the specialist literature is actually the most effective changeover strategy in terms of relay performance have hardly been examined to date. For example, it is unclear whether a reduction in the time between the stroke of the incoming swimmer and the head passage of the changing swimmer at 7.5m can be achieved by optimizing the horizontal power stroke even without minimizing the changing time.
In the present project, two longitudinal interventions were carried out on competitive swimmers. On the one hand, it was shown in a sample of 26 junior national team swimmers that feedback of the horizontal maximum force leads to better relay start performances than feedback of the transition time. On the other hand, after an intervention with 16 competitive swimmers, it became clear that the single-step start during the relay changeover is a more effective start variant for the relay changeover than the traditional arm-swing start.

Publications:

• Fischer, S. & Kibele, A. (2008) On the effectiveness of two relay change strategies within a learning intervention with top German swimmers. Proceedings of the conference of the Austrian Sports Science Society 2008 in Vienna, 29-30
• Kibele, A. & Fischer, S. (2009). Learning of relay change strategies in top German swimmers. K. Witte (Ed.). Biomechanical performance diagnostics in swimming - experiences in competitive sports and derivations for the education of students and coaches. Proceedings: dvs-Symposium Swimming: Institute for Applied Training Science, 10-12.09.09 in Leipzig.