Purpose This study aimed to provide evidence for the interpretation of the projected frontal area (PFA) during front crawl. To achieve this goal, we developed a method for calculating the PFA of each body segment using digital human technology and compared the pressure drag under two calculation conditions: a combination of the PFA with and without accounting for the horizontal velocity of each body segment. Methods Twelve competitive male swimmers performed a 15-m front crawl at 1.20 m·s-1. The three-dimensional positions of the reflective markers attached to the swimmer`s body were recorded using an underwater motion-capture system. Based on the body shape of each swimmer obtained from the photogenic body scanner, individual digital human body models were created with the color of the model`s vertices divided into eight body segments. The time series of the volumetric swimming motion was reconstructed using inverse kinematics. The PFA of each body segment was then calculated by the automatic processing of a series of parallel frontal images. The pressure drag index, defined as the value excluding the drag coefficient while simultaneously considering the PFA and the horizontal velocity, was calculated under two conditions: the static condition (accounting for only the PFA of each body segment) and the dynamic condition (accounting for the PFA and horizontal velocity of each body segment). Results Notably, the pressure drag index was higher under the static condition than under the dynamic condition for the humerus, ulna, and hand segments (P < 0.001). Conclusions The results obtained using our methodology indicate that the PFA of the upper limb segments overestimates their contribution to pressure drag during front crawl under the static condition.
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