Effects of Various Warm-Up Procedures on 100-Yard Times of Competitive Swimmers

The purpose of this study was to determine the values that can be ascribed to the warm-up procedures customarily employed by competitive swimmers (hot showers, calisthenics, massage, and swimming). Thirteen subjects swam a total of 195 time trials. Each swimmer swam three 100-yard time trials with no warm-up and three time trials after each of the four warm-up procedures. The group as a whole showed significant improvement only following the swimming warm-up, whereas the breast-strokers and dolphin swimmers as a group had their best and significant improvement following calisthenics. The free stylers as a group showed a significant decrease in speed in their trials after calisthenics warm-up.