Active recovery strategy and lactate clearance in elite swimmers.

BACKGROUND: Swimming requires sustained high performance, with limited recovery between heats, recovery strategies are essential to performance but are often self-regulated and sub- optimal. Accordingly, we investigated a physiologically determined recovery protocol.

METHODS: Fifteen (m=9, f=6) international junior age group swimmers participated in this study. The average age of the participants was 15.8 ± 1.5 years. All participants completed a lactate elevation protocol (8 x 50 m sprints), followed by one of three recovery strategies, 1) velocity at lactate threshold (VLT), 2) coach prescribed protocol (COA) and 3) national governing body recommendations (NGB) and thereafter a 200-m time trial.

RESULTS: [lac-]B was similar between trials at baseline (pooled data: 1.3 ± 0.4 mmol.l-1, P>0.05) but increased following 8x50 m sprints (pooled data 9.5 ± 3.5 mmol.l-1, P<0.05) and reduced in all conditions (mean reduction 6.4 ± 1.7 mmol.l-1). [lac-]B remained elevated following NGB (5.6 ± 0.8 mmol.l-1, P<0.05) compared with COA (2.3 ± 1.7 mmol.l-1) and VLT (1.7 ± 1.2 mmol.l-1) but was blunted during the 200-m time trial in VLT (6.4 ± 1.7 mmol.l-1, P<0.05). Time trial performance was similar between trials; VLT (2.24 ± 0.12 min), COA (2.23 ± 0.14 min) and NGB (2.22 ± 0.13 min, P>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Despite similar performance, individually prescribed recovery strategy with a physiological basis will preserve repeated exercise performance performed on the same day.