Analysis of human underwater undulatory swimming using musculoskeletal modelling

Abstract

Elite swimming is a highly competitive sport. At this professional level, the difference between a podium finish or not, is measured in fractions of a second. While improvements in specific performance metrics may deliver a marginal improvement, it is through the accumulation of marginal gains that the winning margins are created. Quantifying performance in elite sport is therefore fundamental in identifying and implementing improvements. The trade-off between energy expenditure, thrust generated and attained velocity are identified as key aspects to performance. From a review of previous swimming research it was identified that there was a lack of suitable methods for simultaneously quantifying the energy expenditure, thrust and velocity for a particular swimming technique. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the performance of human underwater undulatory swimming (UUS) |a significant proportion of a race for multiple events. This encompasses experimentally gathered data and computational musculoskeletal modelling in the analysis and evaluation of UUS technique. This thesis has developed a novel, fully functional musculoskeletal model with which detailed analysis of human UUS can be performed. The experimental and processing methods for two methods of acquiring the athlete's kinematics have also been developed. A model based upon fish locomotion is coupled with the musculoskeletal model to provide the fluid loadings for the simulation. Detailed analysis of two techniques of an elite athlete has demonstrated this process in a case study. Energy expended by the simulated muscles is estimated. Combined with the measured velocity and predicted thrust, the propulsive efficiency for each technique is determined.

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ORCID for S.R. Turnock: orcid.org/0000-0001-6288-0400

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