The best dry land workout exercises for swimmers are those that aim to develop performance, strength and flexibility but without compromising health. As there is no “one-size-fitsall” recipe, coaches should be very cautious when choosing a dryland workout regimen. In fact, due to the swimming cyclic and continuous characteristics, overuse affects (almost) every swimmer, reinforcing the role that land workouts should have in preserving and promoting swimmers health, and not contributing to the high prevalence of shoulder, low back and knee joint injuries. As competitive swimmers of any age should avoid dry land workout mistakes (that will leave them prone to injury), we will briefly present a new trend on agonistic, antagonist and synergistic muscles coordination to be applied in strength and mobility dry land training.
Introduction. The number of sports practitioners engaged on extreme physical conditioning programs has been growing exponentially in the last decades. However, the information about participating in competitions on their physiological systems is scarce. Aim of Study. This study aimed to evaluate the neuromuscular and autonomic responses of CrossFit® practitioners in a competition. Material and Methods. Three subjects (with 17 months of experience) were monitored during a two consecutive days competition. Participants performed five events (three on the first day and two on the second one) composed of body weight exercises, Olympic weightlifting and aerobic activities. Neuromuscular performance and autonomic response were assessed through countermovement jump and heart rate variability (respectively). Results. Subject A has decreased in 8% his countermovement jump and heart rate variability values from pre-day 1 to the end of the competition. Subject C have showed a decreasing of the –4.0% on the vertical impulse of countermovement jump height at the end of the competition. Therefore, two CrossFit® competition consecutive days negatively influenced neuromuscular and autonomic function of the male practitioner. Conclusions. By characterizing the behavior of internal and external load variables of CrossFit® practitioners during a competition, it was evidenced that monitoring strategies provide data that favor a better decision making on the need recovery strategies during and after a CrossFit® competition.