Emanuele Chirico

Background: Modern pentathlon includes horse riding, fencing, swimming, shooting and cross-country running. Events can last many hours during which the athletes face almost maximal energy and physiological demands, and fatigue. Early recognition and prevention of injuries and overuse syndromes can be achieved by refining the individual training loads. The purpose of the study was to determine which parameter could be the most accurate predictor of swimming working capacity determinants in pentathletes. Methods: Fourteen male pentathletes performed a continuous maximal incremental test in the swimming flume ergometer to measure peak oxygen uptake (VO₂peak), and five swimming tests in a 50 m swimming pool to detect critical velocity (CV); velocity at 2 and 4 mM·L⁻¹ of blood lactate (v2, v4) and energy cost (EC). Results: The 200 m swimming time was 2:18–2:32 m:s (340 FINA points). CV was 1.21 ± 0.04 m·s⁻¹, v2 was 1.14 ± 0.09 and v4 1.23 ± 0.08 m·s⁻¹. VO₂peak was 3540.1 ± 306.2 mL·min⁻¹ or 48.8 ± 4.6 mL·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹. EC at 1.24 m·s⁻¹ was 45.7 ± 2.4 mL·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹. Our main finding was the large correlation of CV with 200 m swimming performance; Conclusions: Among all the protocols analysed, CV is the most predictive and discriminative of individual swimming performance in this group of pentathletes. It appears as the most suitable test to constantly refine their swimming training loads for both performance enhancement and health promotion.

INTRODUCTION: Swimming represents a crucial capacity for water polo players. Several studies have proposed different protocols to under-stand the incidence of this capacity on water polo performance and to improve the players' swimming assessment. This work aimed to provide a systematic review regarding the current status of physiological swimming tests for water polo players with the purpose to furnish a complete framework to coaches and fully exploit recent advances of scientific research to enhance performance assessment and monitoring of the athletes. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Science Direct were searched for relevant studies published from January 2000 to January 2021. The study dealt with a specific water test and performed in a horizontal swimming position without ball were included. EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Twenty-three studies met the inclusion criteria. The results indicate the physiological assessment of water polo play-ers might be divided into two areas concerning the swimming evaluation: swimming sprint tests and endurance swimming test. Furthermore, en-durance swimming tests may be split into two subgroups: anaerobic-endurance swimming and aerobic-endurance swimming tests. Each of these areas evaluates a specific conditional capacity through swimming protocols based on the players' individual profile and water polo demands. CONCLUSIONS: In the last years, scientific research has studied the typical ability of each water polo rule and of every athletes' level that rep-resents this sport. The results have oriented the researchers to choose different protocols to evaluate each swimming capacity that characterizes a particular phase of the water polo match.

Water exercise provides a workload in every direction of motion for training in a reduced impact environment. The selection of an appropriate physical activity and an individual exercise prescription are essential to obtain training effects. The aim of the present study was to determine individualised relative exercise intensities at four speeds of motion for water cycling and water running. Running was tested both in buoyancy and with the feet in contact with the bottom of the pool. To this purpose, gas exchanges, heart rate, and blood lactate were measured in each test session. Fourteen active, healthy females (23.2 ± 1.6 years) underwent a dry land maximal incremental protocol to exhaustion on a treadmill and hydrobike (HB); they engaged in water running with ground contact (RC) and water running suspended (RS) tests in a swimming pool at 30, 40, 50, and 60 cycles per minute (cpm), submerged at the individual xiphoid level. The four motion speeds of the three water exercise modalities ranged from 50% to 95% of the maximal heart rate and the maximal oxygen uptake, representing a moderate-to-vigorous training stimulus. RS elicited the lowest oxygen consumption, whereas HB demanded the significantly highest oxygen consumption and presented the highest blood lactate accumulation, with vigorous intensity being reached at 50 cpm and near maximal intensity at 60 cpm. It appears that water cycling could be more suitable for athletic training, whereas water running could be more appropriate for health and fitness purposes.

The aim of the study was to analyse the fitness level of young horse riders before and after 12 weeks of training restrictions instituted due to the COVID-19 emergency. Anthropometrical measure assessment and an eight-items fitness test battery were administered to 61 puberal and adolescent female amateur horse riders. Subjects were evaluated within 3 weeks before (pre-tests) the period of training restrictions and on the first day of normal training after it (post-tests). Post-test results showed significant increases in body weight (Z: −1.732; p value: 0.001; ES: −0.157) and BMI (F: 9.918; p value: 0.003; ES: 0.146), whilst the performance in hand grip and abdominal strength, hip mobility, and 10 × 5 m Shuttle and Cooper 12 min tests’ outcomes significantly decreased (F: 29.779; p value: 0.001 F: 29.779; p value: 0.001 F: 29.779; p value: 0.001 F: 29.779; p value: 0.001 F: 29.779; p value: 0.001, respectively). Correlation analysis revealed that riders’ experience was significantly correlated with hand grip (p < 0.01), leg strength (p < 0.01), hip mobility (p < 0.05), and 5 × 10 m Shuttle (p < 0.01) and the Cooper 12 min (p < 0.01) test results. It could be suggested that equestrian activities could produce a higher fitness level in puberal and adolescent riders, whilst home-based, unsupervised, and unattentively planned training during the twelve weeks of training restrictions might be insufficient to maintain it.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the 2019–2020 season, swimming competitions and training have been limited leading to a setback in performances. The study analyzed if, during the subsequent season, swimmers’ have been able to regain the lost performance. Swimming time trends were analyzed comparing Tokyo with Rio Olympics and with mathematically predicted results. The gap between the gold medalist and the last finalist, and the differences between men and women have also been considered. Swimming competition results of females and males, in 100 m and 200 m Freestyle and Backstroke, were collected from the Olympics’ official website. Results showed that at Tokyo Olympics almost all swimmers’ times improved as compared to Rio’s. Analysis of performance trends highlighted that performance progression does not proceed in a linear fashion and that is best predicted by more recent results. Women’s progression was higher than men’s and the gap between the first and last finalist constantly decreased, except for the Tokyo Olympics. In conclusion, the unprecedented Tokyo Olympic Games and qualification year seems not to have disrupted all Olympic swimmers’ performance, suggesting that stakeholders support and athlete’s coping ability might safeguard the subsistence of performance.