Relationship Between Upper Body Anaerobic Power and Freestyle Swimming Performance
Participants
n=30 competitive age-group swimmers (14 males, 16 females), training daily for the 5 months before the study (average 6,000 m/day, 6 days/week)
Protocol
Wingate Anaerobic Arm Test (WAAT): peak power (PP), mean power (MP) and fatigue index (FI)
50-m freestyle time trial; swimmers also reported current competition times for all distances up to 400 m
Correlations between WAAT variables and swim speed
Key Results
50-m swim speed (S50) correlated strongly with WAAT peak power (r = 0.82, p < 0.001) and mean power (r = 0.83, p < 0.001), and weakly with fatigue index (r = 0.41, p < 0.05)
PP and MP remained significantly correlated with swim speed at longer distances, but the correlations generally decreased as distance increased
S50 itself correlated strongly with swim speed over all distances up to and including 400 m (r = 0.74-0.96, p < 0.001)
Authors' conclusion: a strong relationship exists between upper-body anaerobic power measured by the WAAT and performance in both sprint and longer (up to 400 m) freestyle events; the WAAT may serve as a tool to evaluate and monitor swimmers' upper-body anaerobic power
Mechanism
Inference, not tested: 50-m freestyle is largely powered by the upper body over ~25-30 s, so arm-cranking anaerobic power captures much of the propulsive capacity; the weakening correlation with distance reflects the growing aerobic share of longer events. Correlation in a mixed-sex, mixed-age group also partly reflects body size and maturity.
Practical Application
In 30 competitive age-group swimmers, upper-body anaerobic power on a 30-s arm Wingate explained most of the variance in 50-m freestyle speed (r = 0.82 for peak power, 0.83 for mean power) and stayed related, though less tightly, up to 400 m — an arm-crank power test is a valid monitoring tool for sprint swimmers
Fatigue index was only weakly related to sprint speed (r = 0.41): peak and mean arm power matter more than fatigue resistance for 50 m
Speed over 50 m predicted speed at every distance up to 400 m (r = 0.74-0.96) in this age-group cohort — sprint capacity is a broad performance marker in young swimmers
This is a correlational study: it does not show that training arm power on land improves swim times (Inference, not tested)
Limitations
Old study (1991); cross-sectional correlations, no intervention
Mixed-sex age-group sample — correlations inflated by size/maturity spread (Inference, not tested)
Competition times for distances beyond 50 m were self-reported
How this entry was checked and changed
Why this level
regraded 2026-09-27 from C+: cross-sectional correlational study, n=30
Content correction 2026-09-27
The entry described a cycling warm-up/Wingate study ("task-specific warm-up gave no improvement, fatigue index greater after warm-up, minimal warm-up for Wingate tests") — nothing of this is in the paper. The DOI and title resolve to Hawley & Williams 1991: WAAT arm power vs freestyle swim speed in 30 age-group swimmers. Body rewritten from the abstract.
Sport "cycling, sprint" -> swimming; tags and cross-reference replaced; Level C+ -> B (cross-sectional, n=30).