Dynamics and kinematics in tumble turn: an analysis of performance

et al. 1999). Inaddition, they have found that the fastest and slowestyoung freestyle swimmers differed significantly betweenthe 50m time and these two measures of turningperformance (2.5mRTT and 5mRTT) (Blanksby et al.1996). Itwas found earlier that the correlation between thetotal turn time and the event time increased with thedistance of the event (Chow et al. 1984). It is alsonoticeable that turning is faster than stroking (Blanksbyet al. 1996; Blanksby et al. 2004).A successful swim turn results from a multitude offactors and requires a complex series ofmoves to optimisethe total turning performance. The freestyle tumble turncan be divided into approach, rotation, wall contact, glide,underwater propulsion and stroke resumption phases. Thecontact phase could be divided into passive (braking) andactive (push-off)sub-phases.The aim of this study was first to analyse thecorrelations between the turn performance (3mRTT) andkinematic or dynamic factors, and then between each pairoffactors to explain how best turns are realised.