Objective: To find out anthropometric determinants of swimming performance of the national level players at Sports Authority of India National Swimming Academy (SAINSA).
Methods: The study was conducted for a period of 3 months on 32 swimmers at National Swimming Academy, Sports Authority of India with mean age 13.47±1.93 years. 32 anthropometric measurements were taken. The measurements were also used to derive anthropometric indices. Hand grip, back strength and leg strength were also measured. Swimming performance was determined by converting the freestyle best timings into FINA scores. Mean and standard deviation along with correlation coefficient with FINA scores was calculated for each variable.
Results: The determining anthropometric factors for swimming performance came out to be height, weight, sitting height, total arm length, forearm length, arm span, hand length, hand breadth , biacromian breadth, bicristal breadth, chest depth, total leg length, chest circumference, waist circumference, hip circumference, upper arm girth, forearm girth, thigh girth and calf girth. Robusticity and chest shape are also determining factors of swimming performance along with hand grip and back strength.
Conclusion: A swimmer possesses a spindle shaped body with trunk playing a major role as evident by the positive correlations of swimming performance of the participants with upper body parameters. A swimmer is supposed to be tall and muscular built with desired amount of fat content to maintain buoyancy in water. The delivered force of the body for swimming comes from core as hand grip and back strength share a positive correlation with FINA scores.
