Keynote Lectures
Keynote Lecture
Xavier Valle, Barcelona Football Club, Spain
Resistive and Propulsive Forces in Swimming: Challenges and Novel Insights
Paola Zamparo, University of Verona, Italy
Keynote Lecture
Xavier Valle
Barcelona Football Club
Spain
Brief Bio
Available soon.
Resistive and Propulsive Forces in Swimming: Challenges and Novel Insights
Paola Zamparo
University of Verona
Italy
Brief Bio
Paola Zamparo graduated in biology at the University of Trieste (I) and worked for about 20 years in the field of exercise physiology at the University of Udine (I), under the supervision of Prof. di Prampero. She then moved to the University of Verona (I) and now are about 20 years that she is working in the field of biomechanics. She did her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) under the supervision of Prof. Minetti, and she is author of more than 100 papers published in international scientific, peer-reviewed journals. Her main field of interest is the interplay between the biomechanics and energetics of human locomotion: i.e., how the mechanical determinants of cyclic sports activities (such as cycling, swimming and running) influence their physiological responses.
Abstract
Measuring propulsive and resistive forces in the water environment is not an easy task. Propulsive forces are necessarily reduced in water due to a lower propelling efficiency compared to land locomotion, and resistive forces are easy to measure in passive conditions but not during actual swimming movements. After reviewing the pros and cons of the most common methods to determine propulsive and resistive forces at constant speed (a condition in which these should be equal and opposite), a novel method will be presented, based on a standing start test (where the velocity steadily increases up to a maximum value). This method is particularly interesting as it can be implemented in practice with low-cost equipment (such as an IMU) or any velocity measurement system. Based on data of maximum velocity and acceleration time, it is possible to estimate the propulsive and resistive forces generated by the swimmer; since in this test the speed is (typically) not constant, the added mass of the swimmer must also be known. Notably, the values of propulsive force and active drag coefficient calculated in this manner are similar to those obtained by means of the residual thrust method (which is based on full and semi-tethered tests), which will also be presented and discussed.