Effects of 8 weeks dry-land core stability training on trunk muscles endurance, swimming speed and upper extremity performance in young female swimmers

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 8 weeks of dry-land core stability training on trunk muscles endurance, swimming speed and upper extremity performance in young female swimmers.

In this study, 24 young female swimmers (15-18 years old) participated voluntarily and were randomly divided into control and training groups. Their core muscles endurance was assessed by McGill test, upper extremity performance was also evaluated by Y-balance tests, closed kinetic chain and athletic performance were measured by the speed and number of arm strokes at 50, 100, and 200 m swimming. Then, the training group participated in an 8-week core stability training program and the control group just engaged in routine swimming activities. At the end, the pre-tests were re-evaluated and on the bases of Shapiro-Wilk and Leven’s test results, Mann-Whitney U and ANCOVA tests for comparing groups, by SPSS23 software with a significant level of 0.05 were used.

After the training program, trunk muscle endurance tests (51% ), arm stroke in all distances 8.86%, 5/88% and 2.80%), swimming speed at 50 and 100 meters (8.98% and 6.78%), Y-balance test (10.03%, 5.74% and 5.80%) and closed kinetic chain test (21.07%) improved and they were significantly different (P˂0.05) and just swimming speed (0.93% progression) differences at 200 meters was not significant (P=0.335).

The results of the present study showed that the positive effects of applying core stability training program on improving athletic performance of young female swimmers especially in short and medium distances.