| Abstrakt: |
This investigation was conducted to determine the effect of high- and low-intensity warm-ups on physiological responses, lactate accumulation, and high-intensity freestyle and tethered swimming performance. Ten male collegiate swimmers were tested for maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) followed by two series of three warm-up protocols performed in a randomized order at least 2 days apart. The warm-up protocols were: (1) no warm-up (NWU), (2) a 366-m swim at 70% VO2 max (LWU) and (3) four 46-m swims at 1-min intervals at a speed corresponding to 110% VO2 max (HWU). Five minutes after each warm-up in the first series, the swimmers swam a 183-m standardized freestyle swim at a velocity corresponding to 110% VO2 max, and 5 min after each warm-up in the second series the swimmers completed a tethered swim to exhaustion with a weight attached to the tether to elicit fatigue at about 2 min. Three minutes after each warm-up and 3 min after each standardized and tethered swim, a finger-prick blood sample for lactate measurement was obtained. Heart rate and VO2 were also measured during the warm-up and the standardized and tethered swims.The performance times in the tethered swim were not significantly different between the three conditions (116.8+46.8, 137±53.3 and 122.94±37.2 s for the NWU, LWU and HWU, respectively). Following the WU, the lactate for the HWU (6.97 + 1.97 and 6.15±1.86 mM) was significantly elevated compared to the NWU (1.73±0.61 and 1.56 + 0.66 mm) and LWU (2.27±0.81 and 2.44±0.81 mM) for both the standardized and tethered swimming conditions. In addition, lactate after the standardized swim was significantly elevated in the HWU (13.66 + 2.66 mM) compared to the NWU and LWU (9.53 ± 2.22 and 10.04 ±2.15 mM, respectively). The results indicated that varying the intensity of the warm-up protocol can elevate lactate, but does not affect performance. In addition, there appears to be no beneficial effect on performance of an intensity-specific warm-up compared to a low-intensity or no warm-up. |
