Publication
Stability of elite freestyle performance from childhood to adulthood
| Summary: | Stability of athletic performance is important for practitioners and coaches, since it allows the selection of appropriate training methods and prediction of ages for best results. We performed a longitudinal study of 1694 season-best performances of 242 elite-standard swimmers throughout their careers, from 12 to 18 years of age. Mean stability (descriptive statistics and one-way repeated-measures ANOVA, followed by a Bonferroni post-hoc test) and normative stability (Cohen's kappa tracking index and the Pearson correlation coefficient) were determined for seven consecutive seasons. Performance improvements in all events were observed (14.36-18.97%). Bonferroni post-hoc tests verified changes in almost all events assessed. Cohen's kappa demonstrated low stability (0.17-0.27) in relative performance. Pearson correlations only became high from 15 to 16 years in the 50-m and 100-m events, and from 16 to 17 years in the 200-m, 400-m, and 1500-m events. Our results show that: (a) swimmers should display a substantial improvement (14-19%) to become elite standard as adults, such as at 18 years; (b) 16 is the age at which the ability to predict adult performance increases markedly. |
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| Main Authors: | Costa, Mário Jorge |
| Other Authors: | Marinho, Daniel; Bragada, José; Silva, António; Barbosa, Tiago M. |
| Subject: | Adolescent Age Factors Analysis of Variance Athletes Child Humans Longitudinal Studies Male Retrospective Studies Athletic Performance Physical Education and Training Swimming |
| Year: | 2011 |
| Country: | Portugal |
| Document type: | article |
| Access type: | open access |
| Associated institution: | Universidade da Beira Interior |
| Language: | English |
| Origin: | uBibliorum |
| Summary: | Stability of athletic performance is important for practitioners and coaches, since it allows the selection of appropriate training methods and prediction of ages for best results. We performed a longitudinal study of 1694 season-best performances of 242 elite-standard swimmers throughout their careers, from 12 to 18 years of age. Mean stability (descriptive statistics and one-way repeated-measures ANOVA, followed by a Bonferroni post-hoc test) and normative stability (Cohen's kappa tracking index and the Pearson correlation coefficient) were determined for seven consecutive seasons. Performance improvements in all events were observed (14.36-18.97%). Bonferroni post-hoc tests verified changes in almost all events assessed. Cohen's kappa demonstrated low stability (0.17-0.27) in relative performance. Pearson correlations only became high from 15 to 16 years in the 50-m and 100-m events, and from 16 to 17 years in the 200-m, 400-m, and 1500-m events. Our results show that: (a) swimmers should display a substantial improvement (14-19%) to become elite standard as adults, such as at 18 years; (b) 16 is the age at which the ability to predict adult performance increases markedly. |
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