The effects of low-volume, high-intensity training on performance parameters in competitive youth swimmers
Abstract
Purpose: To assess the effects of a 7 week low-volume, high-intensity training (HIT) intervention on performance parameters in national level youth swimmers. Methods: Sixteen swimmers (age 15.8 ± 1.0 years, age at peak height velocity 12.9 ± 0.6 years, 100-m freestyle 61.4 ± 4.1 s) were randomly assigned to a HIT group or low-intensity, high-volume training (HVT) group which acted as a control. The HIT group reduced their weekly training volume of zone 1 (low-intensity) training by 50% but increased zone 3 (high-intensity) training by 200%. The HVT group performed training as normal. Pre to post-test measures of physiological performance (velocity at 2.5-mM and 4-mM blood lactate [velocity2.5mM and velocity4mM] and peak blood lactate), biomechanical performance (stroke rate [SR], stroke length [SL] and stroke index [SI] over a 50 and 400-m freestyle) and swimming performance (50-m, 200-m and 400-m freestyle) were assessed. Results: There was no significant three-way interactions between time, group and sex for all performance parameters (P >.05). There was a significant two-way interaction between time and group for velocity4mM (P = .02, ηp2 = .40), SL50 (P = .03, ηp2 = .37) and SI50 (P = .03, ηp2 = .39). Velocity4mM decreased in the HIT group but increased in the HVT group while SL50 and SI50 decreased in the HVT group. Conclusions: A 7 week HIT intervention was neither beneficial nor detrimental to performance parameters however the HIT group completed 6 hours (17.0-km) swimming per week compared to 12 hours (33.4-km) per week for the HVT group.Publisher
Human Kinetics Publishers, IncJournal
International journal of sports physiology and performanceAdditional Links
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30039991Type
Journal articleLanguage
enISSN
1555-0273ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1123/ijspp.2018-0110
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