Reaction time on swimming block start in competitors swimmers on World Swimming Championship

Abstract

The purpose this study was compare the reaction time (RT) in swimmers competitors on World Aquatic Championships in different events and qualifying, introducing than a new perspective about the RT behaviour in high performance swimmers athletes. The study included 103 athletes of different nationalities from the XVII World Swimming Championships in Budapest in July 2017. Female (n = 45) with mean age of 23,67 ± 3,39 years, and male (n = 57) with mean age of 24,63 ± 4,28 years, that competed the finals on 50m, 100m and 200m events, on breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle styles. Descriptive statistics of the date used were the mean and standard deviation. To compare the data between distances, ANOVA was used one way multicompare to verify the difference between RT at different distances and for comparison of the differences between stages was used the model of repeated measures, of each test was selected the 8 athletes finalist and their respective times of the qualifiers, semi-finals and finals. No significant differences were observed on RT between the qualifying heats on male (p > 0.05) and female (p > 0.05), and about the distances, athletes than swan 200m had a upper RT than 100m and 50m (p < 0.05) in both gender. The results show that in the world championship, the RT values on the high performance athletes were statistically different when compared between distances, but not different on stages, which means that swimmers’ coaches need implement a strategic training aimed at the start phases.