Tethered swimming forces in the crawl, breast and back strokes and their relationship to competitive performance

Abstract Forces developed during fully tethered swimming by 18 male athletes were measured uding a load call in the tether cable. Three competitive strokes were studied: crawl, breast and back. Arm and leg components of the crawl and breast stroke were observed separately. Attempts were made to correlate peak and mean tether forces with competitive velocities. A positive correlation was observed between mean tether force and velocity in the crawl, particularly among distance specialists. A negative correlation was found between crawl velocity and the peak/mean force ratio. The data also suggest that the kick contributes significant force in both the crawl and breaststroke. In neither case, however, does the whole stroke produce as much force as the sum of the arm and leg components would indicate.