REF-292 · Zochowski T et al., 2007 · International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, · Paper · PubMed
Effects of Varying Post-warm-up Recovery Time on 200-m Time-trial Swim Performance
Participants
n=10 national-caliber swimmers (5 male, 5 female)
Protocol
Each swimmer swam a 1500-m warm-up, then a 200-m time trial in their specialty stroke after either 10 or 45 min of passive recovery; one trial per condition, 1 week apart, counterbalanced order
Blood lactate and heart rate measured immediately after warm-up, 3 min before, immediately after and 3 min after the TT; RPE after warm-up and after the TT
Key Results
200-m TT was significantly faster after 10 min than after 45 min of recovery: 136.80 ± 20.38 s vs 138.69 ± 20.32 s (about 1.4% — arithmetic on the abstract's means)
Authors' conclusion: a post-warm-up recovery of 10 min rather than 45 min is more beneficial to 200-m swimming TT performance
Temperature was not measured in this study (the abstract lists lactate, heart rate and RPE only)
Mechanism
Inference, not tested here: the shorter delay preserves the warm-up's physiological effects (temperature, blood flow, metabolic activation) while 10 min is still enough to recover from a 1500-m warm-up. West 2013 REF-291 later showed the core-temperature difference directly for 20 vs 45 min.
Practical Application
In 10 national-caliber swimmers, a 200-m TT in the specialty stroke was ~1.9 s (~1.4%) faster when it followed the 1500-m warm-up by 10 min rather than 45 min (136.80 vs 138.69 s) — keep the gap between warm-up and race short
Not from this paper; the base's own practice: if a longer delay is forced by the call-room, use active or passive re-warming strategies
Limitations
Small sample (n=10); only two time intervals compared
National-level, not elite international
Mixed strokes (specialty stroke per swimmer), so times vary widely (SD ~20 s)
No DOI line in the entry; abstract verified via Europe PMC (PMID 19124907)
How this entry was checked and changed
Why this level
regraded 2026-09-27 from B+: counterbalanced crossover, n=10 (<15)
Content correction 2026-09-27
"Core temperature better maintained at 10 min" and "significant correlation between temperature maintenance and performance" -> temperature was not measured in this study (abstract: lactate, HR, RPE); removed.
"1.4% faster in all four strokes" -> each swimmer swam their specialty stroke; TT times (136.80 vs 138.69 s) added, 1.4% kept as arithmetic.
Level B+ -> B (crossover, n=10); Tier "mixed→4-5" -> 3 (national-caliber).