Pre-exercise skin temperature evolution is not related with 100 m front crawl performance

Abstract During the transition between warm-up and competition there is a change in core, muscle and (eventually) skin temperature that may affect swimming performance. We have aimed to assess skin temperature evolution during transition phases of different durations before a typical front crawl effort and to investigate its relationship with performance. Following a standardized warm-up, nine adolescent male swimmers performed three maximal randomized 100 m maximum front crawl trials after 10, 20 and 45 min transition phases. Skin temperature, performance (time, stroke frequency, length and index, and propelling efficiency), heart rate, lactate and perceived effort were assessed. Data showed a skin temperature log increase over time (R2 > 0.96, p  0.05) for the studied transition phases. We have concluded that transitions longer than 10 min will not present thermal changes and that, within the physiologic limits studied, pre-exercise skin temperature does not influence swimming performance.