Introduction: Many different distances, strokes, and highly intensive submersed phases lead to a diversified requirements profile in swimming. Endurance, however, remains one of the most important factors. The evaluation and improvement of aerobic capacity is an essential aspect of performance diagnostics. A standardized and well established test in swimming is the Pansold incremental step test. German swimmers were frequently criticized for a lack of basic endurance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare the Pansold test results of the German national swimming team with the results of former national teams. Methods: In the Pansold test, swimmers have to undergo 5 incremental stages in their main discipline. The outcome is a specific lactate performance curve with three characteristic parameters: The maximum lactate level in test (Lmax), "P 4,0" as a predictor of aerobic capacity in % of maximum speed, and the value "b", exponent in the function y=ae bx, as indicator of gradient of the curve. Despite contradictory views of threshold concepts, Heck (2008) recommend fixed thresholds for comparison of performance curves. 500 data sets of the current national team are evaluated and compared with mean values presented in two publications of Pansold (1994) with 4000 analyzed tests and Rudolph (2000) with 1000 evaluated tests. There are specific data for every point of measurement and discipline. Results: In every discipline, maximum swimming velocity increases during the three points of measurement. P 4,0 values decrease significantly from measure point to measure point in almost every discipline: On average from 90% to 86.7% to 85.7% of maximum speed at lactate level 4 among men, and from 94.0% to 92.6 % to 91.8% among women. Lmax in the majority increases over the three points of measurement. The development of the value "b" is not consistent, but we can observe specific curve shapes for different disciplines. Discussion: Based on these findings, we can conclude that German swimmers today have less aerobic capacity but achieve faster velocity with higher lactate level. This confirms the opinion that German swimmers bring less basic endurance, but they swim faster with higher energetic expenditure. Perhaps this could be the reason for lower physical stress tolerance in several competitions on the same day. Higher endurance may be related to greater training distance and more extensive training at younger ages.
© Copyright 2016 21st Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Vienna, 6. -9. July 2016. Published by University of Vienna. All rights reserved.