Sports Specialization-Specific Morphofunctional Characteristics of Swimmers: A Review

Introduction: A well-organized process of sports selection in swimming minimizes the cost of adaptation to loads in young athletes and allows them to achieve great results while maintaining physical and mental health.
Objective: To present literary data on the morphological and functional characteristics of swimmers depending on their sports specialization.
Materials and methods: We reviewed articles indexed in RSCI and PubMed databases and containing information about morphofunctional features of swimmers by their sports specialization. The search depth amounted to 60 years. As a result, more than 110 articles were analyzed and 36 full-text publications were selected, including 8 articles published over the past five years.
Results: Crawl sprinters and backstroke swimmers have the largest linear dimensions of the body. We established that the longer the competitive distance, the smaller the segmental lengths. Circumference values are unrelated to the length of the distance but are determined by biomechanical characteristics of the rowing, pushing, and striking movements. Functional indicators have an ontogenetic dependence: the older the swimmer, the longer his training experience and the higher his qualifications, the more effective his blood circulation, the stronger his inspiratory muscles and the larger his respiratory capacity. Swimmers with different specializations have different background values of hemodynamic parameters. Functional activity is associated with the period of training. Load testing shows that functional test results are closely related to swimmers’ specialization and the focus of their training process.
Conclusion: Published data provide insight into specific characteristics of swimmers having different sports specialization: morphological and physiological parameters of these athletes depend on the distance and the biomechanical nature of locomotion. Our findings can be used to improve sports selection and increase the effectiveness of health preserving measures in young athletes

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