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JOURNAL
OF
SPORTS SCIENCE &
MEDICINE
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Research
article
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COORDINATION BETWEEN RIBS MOTION AND THORACOABDOMINAL VOLUMES IN SWIMMERS DURING RESPIRATORY MANEUVERS |
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Karine J. Sarro  ,
Amanda P. Silvatti and Ricardo M. L. Barros |
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Laboratory of Instrumentation for Biomechanics, College of Physical Education, Campinas State University, Campinas (SP), Brazil |
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© Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (2008) 7, 195 - 200 |
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| ABSTRACT | |||
| This work aimed to verify if swimmers present better chest wall
coordination during breathing than healthy non-athletes analyzing the correlation
between ribs motion and the variation of thoracoabdominal volumes. The results
of two up-to-date methods based on videogrammetry were correlated in this
study. The first one measured the volumes of 4 separate compartments of
the chest wall (superior thorax, inferior thorax, superior abdomen and inferior
abdomen) as a function of time. The second calculated the rotation angle
of the 2nd to the 10th ribs around the quasi-transversal axis also in function
of time. The chest wall was represented by 53 markers, attached to the ribs,
vertebrae, thorax and abdomen of 15 male swimmers and of 15 non- athletes.
A kinematical analysis system equipped with 6 digital video cameras (60Hz)
was used to obtain the 3D coordinates of the markers. Correlating the curves
of ribs rotation angles with the curves of the separate volumes, swimmers
presented higher values than non-athletes when the superior and inferior
abdomen were considered and the highest correlation values were found in
swimmers for the inferior thorax. These results suggest a better coordination
between ribs motion and thoracoabdominal volumes in swimmers, indicating
the prevalent and coordinated action of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles
to inflate and deflate the chest wall. The results further suggest that
swimming practice leads to the formation of an optimized breathing pattern
and can partially explain the higher lung volumes found in these athletes
reported in literature.
Key words: Kinematics, thoracic wall volumes, ribs motion, swimming. |
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