Data-Driven Swimming: How Analytics Can Enhance Your Start and Turn Performance
Our resume of the Experienti@ mobilitie in Eindhoven
The result of a swimmer is always teamwork…
Despite saying that swimming is an individual sport, so many components and people play an essential role in a swimmer’s success.
It all comes down to the coach, the methods, the understanding of physical and psychological processes of the human body, science, and of course, the swimmer himself.
A swimmer might compete alone in the pool, but it takes a whole village to get to this point.
Without teamwork, the dream won’t work…
Guided by that belief we try our finest to implement it in our work and always educate ourselves to do even better than the day before.
That’s why we attend as many conferences as possible…
And so the Experienti@ mobilitie in Eindhoven from March 15 to March 17, 2023, hosted by the InnoSportLab.
A few of you might have waited for our report, but to be honest, we had to process it a little.
During those three days, our minds just got blown away…
We got a lot of new food for thought and interesting insights. And I even had the chance to present myself on the last day.
But before I go into further detail I’m going to break each day down to give you a little overview:
Day 1
The first day was all about getting to know InnoSportLab (Innovation Sport Laboratory), their mission, and how they try to achieve it.
Here’s what we discussed further:
- The importance of regular to daily support of the swim teams.
- Presentations of the findings from P.h.D. students:
→ The main (ultimate) aim of swimming practice
→ Importance of the “tuck index”
→ The ideal “swim-teaching-system” to inspire kids to fall for swimming
→ The efficiency of the turn
→ Talent ID & the central system for testing in the Netherlands
Day 2
On the second day, it got a little more practical…
- We had the opportunity to see practical lessons regarding their daily routine of the start and turn analysis.
- We saw possible solutions to improve a swimmer´s performance based on the video or the data.
- We saw the importance of the push-off impulse (how strong they have to push–off from the wall) for the final turn/start time.
- We discussed another important aspect of an effective start.
Afterward, we summarized some main key points and findings from the morning session during the theoretical part.
But what was particularly interesting for us was to get some insights into the process and systems they are using for data analysis.
Day 3
The third and last day of this congress started by the pool again. But this time there were turns on the menu…
We discussed other alluring aspects of effective turns such as:
- the distance to the wall
- the rotation time + body position (head — knee distance & angle ratio)
- the force impulse during the push-off and how to maximize it
- the trajectory of the underwater phase
- the direction of the push-off from the wall
In the afternoon it was the participant’s turn to share their knowledge, following the motto “Sharing is Caring”.
International specialists were able to share their knowledge and findings of their respective research regarding starts and turns.
Here’s whom we got to learn from:
- Prof. Raul Arellano (Aquatics lab Granada — Spain)
He talked about the automatic measurement system of each body segment and its velocity during swimming.
What Raul also covered was the importance of A.I. and machine learning in the field of data collection and swimming in the near future.
- Paco Cuenca Fernandez (Aquatics lab Granada- Spain)
During his presentation, he covered the PAPE effects in the start performance.
This is also when umimplavat.cz had the chance to share some wisdom…
I talked about our research “The percentage contribution of turns to the final race time in short course”, which I conducted in cooperation with colleagues from the Aquatics lab University of Granada (Spain) and our Swiss colleague, Dennis-Peter Born.
We already published an article, got featured on Swimming World, and published scientific papers regarding this topic.
Summing up, this conference was truly incredible! The topics were inspiring and we even had the opportunity to meet the president of LEN European Aquatics, António José Silva, personally!
Looking forward to implementing all the new impulses into our work…
Until next time,
Marek (Team member umimplavat.cz)
P.S. As we said at the beginning, we got a lot of input during these three days and will share something with you little by little on our socials. Find us on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Stay tuned.
If you are interested in a topic, just leave us a comment or message us.
