Changes in swimming performance of physically active young men over six years

Abstract

In this study, we tracked changes in the swimming performance of physically active young men over six years, including the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The cohort consisted of secondary school students in Slovakia, with an average age of 18.5 ± 0.5 years. Testing was performed annually, with the following number of students assessed each year: 2017 (192), 2018 (184), 2019 (189), 2020 (0, owing to pandemic restrictions), 2021 (184), 2022 (160), 2023 (171). We monitored the students' performance in the 100 m freestyle swimming test from 2017 to 2023. The testing was always performed in the last week of April at the 25 m swimming pool of FTVŠ UK in Bratislava. We used the Kruskal- Wallis test to assess statistically significant differences among multiple groups of independent variables. Post hoc analysis was performed using multiple comparisons between all group combinations, applying Bonferroni correction. The Kruskal–Wallis H test indicated a significant difference between years (p = 0.004). Post-hoc analysis using the Mann–Whitney U test with Bonferroni correction revealed differences between the following pairs of years: 2017 and 2021 (p = 0.000), 2017 and 2022 (p = 0.011), 2017 and 2023 (p = 0.038), 2018 and 2021 (p = 0.006), and 2019 and 2021 (p = 0.008). The closure of swimming pools during the pandemic and the resulting inability to swim may have contributed to the observed differences in motor performance over the monitored years. We hypothesize that long-term involuntary inactivity may lead to a decline in motor performance both in the short and long term.