Dry Land Free Style Swimming: Comparison of a Traditional & Multi-Planer Swim Bench

Freestyle swimming in the water involves circumferential motion of the arms as well as rotation of the trunk through all three planes of motion. Simulated dry-land swimming on a swim bench does not appear to incorporate the typical rotation of the trunk, thus does not include total body motion of a freestyle stroke .. There is insufficient information documenting the swim bench's ability to mimic the typical in water swimming kinematics and muscular recruitment of the upper extremity and trunk. There is a need for a dry-land tool that can simulate the multiplanar motion of swimming for better stroke analysis, training, and injury rehabilitation. A swim bench modification allow trunk rotation during simulated dry~land swimming will be constructed. Competitive sw;mmers from a division I university will be instrumented with surface electromyography and a 3-D video analysis system to examine muscular activation patterns and kinematics between the two swim bench apparatuses. The data generated will be compared to previously reported in water reports to determine which apparatus best simulates in water sWlmmmg parameters.