The Effect of Stretching of Swimming-related Muscles on 800-meter Swimming Performance in Master Swimmers.

Stretch Clinical Trial

Official title:

The Effect of Stretching The Pectoralis Major, Sternocleidomastoid, and Iliopsoas Muscles on 800 Meters Swimming Performance in Master Swimmers

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Enrolling by invitation

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05991999
• Other study ID #: SYeditepe
• Status: Enrolling by invitation
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: August 5, 2023
• Est. completion date: November 20, 2023

Study information

• Verified date: September 2023
• Source: Yeditepe University
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The study aimed to investigate the effect of stretching the sternocleidomastoid, pectoralis major and iliopsoas muscles on 800 meters freestyle swimming performance in master swimmers.

Description:

The benefits of swimming are almost endless. Swimming is important not only as a sport but also for evaluating leisure time, building strength, and recuperating. It even allows some muscles to grow symmetrically and consistently. There is no malfunctioning muscle group in swimming. Even when swimming with minimal effort, one can move with relatively little force and easily. Besides this, it establishes a sense of trust.

Sportive swimming is described as the athlete's ability to complete specific distances in water in the quickest amount of time using freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, or butterfly strokes. The backstroke technique is performed in supine posture, while the other techniques are swum in facedown, horizontal, and near-horizontal positions. Variable approaches have varied characteristics in terms of body position, leg kick, arm pulling, head position, respiration, and condition.

Biomechanically, our myofascial connections also helps swimmers while they swim. Tightening Superficial Front Line (SFL) causes flexion of the hips and trunk in motion also produces hyperextension at the top of the neck. The large muscles of the pectoralis and latissimus provide the motive force for the large movements of adduction and extension, such as a swimming stroke. Vertical fibers in the fascia on the profound side of the epimysium of the pectoralis major, which does indeed connect from the rectus attachment to the lower part of the fascia colli superficialis (and sternocleidomastoid (SCM)). Lower extremity also coordinates stability while upper part of the body initiates movements between phases İliopsoas starts the hip flexion and is followed up by the rectus femoris initiates knee extension to continue horizontal movement in the water.

Because of the demands of the sport, swimmers have a more rounded forward posture. When the head is forward, the cervical spine is hyperextended, the thoracic spine is in slight flexion, and the lumbar spine is in slight extension, this is known as forward posture. Muscle imbalances in the shoulders are to blame for this forward posture. In the recovery phase of swimming, the scapula must retract and protract along the thoracic wall. The subacromial space reduces with protraction because of the swimmer's adaptation due to sport. Stretching the scapular protractors such as the pectoralis major muscle has been shown to have a considerable impact on the degree of forwarding shoulder posture (FSP) in healthy people. Besides this adaptation also, swimmers with shoulder pain because of more active trigger points can lead to the development of mechanical hypersensitivity compared to ones that do not have any shoulder pain.

As summarized above, swimming athletes generally have a forward posture due to their adaptation to water. In our opinion, this posture may be due to the tension of the anterior group myofascial structures, and releasing the fascia by stretching might affect swimmers' performance. Master swimmers have that adaptation far more compared to young swimmers. Therefore, we can better observe the effects of Sternocleidomastoid, Pectoralis major, and İliopsoas muscle stretching on swimming performance by testing swimmers at distances such as 800 meters.

H0: There is no significant difference between the 800-meter performance measurements of the people in the group that added stretching of specific muscles to their normal training and those in the group that did not add stretching.

H1: There is a significant difference in the 800-meter performance measurements of the group with specific muscle stretching added to their normal training and the people in the group without stretching.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Enrolling by invitation
• Enrollment: 30
• Est. completion date: November 20, 2023
• Est. primary completion date: October 20, 2023
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 25 Years to 70 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participants in the study voluntarily,

• Participants in ages over 25 years of age,

• Participants must swim at least two days a week.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Presence of chronic disease,

• Participants have undergone surgery in relevant regions in the last 2 years,

• Participants have had injuries in the relevant regions in the last 2 years.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Stretch

Intervention

Other:
• Stretching
Master swimmers will be taught iliopsoas, sternocleidomastoid and pectoralis major stretching exercises as stretching exercises. Participants will stretch daily for 3 repetitions, each stretching for 20 seconds. Participants will continue their swimming training 2 days a week.
• Training
Participants continued their swimming training 2 days a week.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Turkey	Yeditepe University	Istanbul	Atasehir/Istanbul

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Yeditepe University

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Turkey, 

References & Publications (8)

Batalha NM, Raimundo AM, Tomas-Carus P, Barbosa TM, Silva AJ. Shoulder rotator cuff balance, strength, and endurance in young swimmers during a competitive season. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Sep;27(9):2562-8. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31827fd849. — View Citation

Findley T, Chaudhry H, Stecco A, Roman M. Fascia research--a narrative review. J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2012 Jan;16(1):67-75. doi: 10.1016/j.jbmt.2011.09.004. Erratum In: J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2012 Apr;16(2):270. — View Citation

Hidalgo-Lozano A, Fernandez-de-las-Penas C, Calderon-Soto C, Domingo-Camara A, Madeleine P, Arroyo-Morales M. Elite swimmers with and without unilateral shoulder pain: mechanical hyperalgesia and active/latent muscle trigger points in neck-shoulder muscles. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2013 Feb;23(1):66-73. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2011.01331.x. Epub 2011 May 12. — View Citation

Klingler W, Velders M, Hoppe K, Pedro M, Schleip R. Clinical relevance of fascial tissue and dysfunctions. Curr Pain Headache Rep. 2014;18(8):439. doi: 10.1007/s11916-014-0439-y. — View Citation

Rittweger J, Kwiet A, Felsenberg D. Physical performance in aging elite athletes--challenging the limits of physiology. J Musculoskelet Neuronal Interact. 2004 Jun;4(2):159-60. No abstract available. — View Citation

Rubin RT, Rahe RH. Effects of aging in Masters swimmers: 40-year review and suggestions for optimal health benefits. Open Access J Sports Med. 2010 Apr 7;1:39-44. doi: 10.2147/oajsm.s9315. — View Citation

Solem-Bertoft E, Thuomas KA, Westerberg CE. The influence of scapular retraction and protraction on the width of the subacromial space. An MRI study. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 1993 Nov;(296):99-103. — View Citation

Tanaka H, Seals DR. Endurance exercise performance in Masters athletes: age-associated changes and underlying physiological mechanisms. J Physiol. 2008 Jan 1;586(1):55-63. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2007.141879. Epub 2007 Aug 23. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	800 Meter Degree test	The 800 meter test will be used to evaluate the long-term aerobic metabolic performance of master swimmers.	6 weeks
Primary	The MyotonPro - Frequency	The tone of muscle is described by frequency of muscle or oscillation frequency (Hz). It evaluates the tone that the muscle is at resting position.	6 weeks
Primary	The MyotonPro - Stiffness	Stiffness is biomechanical feature of a muscle. It is described by reaction to contraction or forces from outside of tissue that may cause the original form to deteriorate.	6 weeks
Primary	The MyotonPro - Decrement	The elasticity of a muscle is described by a logarithmic reduction of tissue's normal amplitude. It is more related with the dissipation of mechanical energy that arises between the deformation of the tissue and its recovery. It is a biomechanical feature of tissue that is called as elasticity. When the tissue's decrement is increase, elasticity decreases. There is an opposite proportion among themselves.	6 weeks
Primary	The MyotonPro - Relaxation	It is the time which is called as Mechanical Stress Relaxation Time (ms) between the deformation of the normal shape of the tissue and its return to its original shape.	6 weeks
Primary	The MyotonPro - Creep	It is defined as ratio of deterioration and relaxation time of tissue. In case of a continuous stress, tissue regularly stretches over time. This is called as creep.	6 weeks

External Links

•   Applications - Myoton. Accessed June 28, 2023