ESTIMATING SUBMAXIMAL AND PEAK OXYGEN UPTAKE BASED ON POSTEXERCISE MEASUREMENTS IN SWIMMING

This study aims to compare direct oxygen uptake (Vo!) measurements during submaximaland supramaximal swimmingwith the most common used procedures to estimates derived from postexercise measurements. 14 elite swimmers performed 3 x 200 m front crawl swims at increasing submaximal speeds (0.9, 1.0 and 1.1 m/s) and, in a separated session, a 200 m all-out swim. Vo!was measured breath by breath (K4b2, Cosmed) and heart rate (HR) was recorded beat by beat (CardioSwim, Freelap), 1 min before, during and 3 min postexercise. Vo!"#$(0-20) and Vo!"#$%(0-20) was the average of the last 20 s of effort in the submaximal and maximal tests (respectively) and were used as criterion values. Postexercise measures were compared for both intensities: (i) first 20 s average [Vo!"#$(0-20) and Vo!"#$%(0-20)];(ii) linear and semilogarithmic backward extrapolation of the first 3 or 4 x 20 s averages [BEsub; BEpeak; LOGsub; LOGpeak]; and (iii) predicted values using HR-Vo!mathematical modelling [pVo!"#$(0−20)and pVo!"#$%(0−20)]. RM-ANOVA and post-hoc Bonferroni tests compared exercise and estimated Vo!differences (p < 0.05). For supramaximal swimming, criterion Vo!"#$%(-20-0) (2985 ± 430 ml/kg·min-1) was different from all estimated parameters (p < 0.010) except pVo!"#$%(0−20) (3020 ± 461 ml/min; mean diff. 1.1%, p > 0.99). For submaximal intensity, Vo!"#$(0−20)(1780 ± 246 ml/min) was the only value differing