Are dry-land measurements and their asymmetries related to swimming performance?

This study aimed to verify the correlations between variables obtained from dry-land tests and swimming performance, in addition to examining the associations between the dry-land asymmetries and swimming performance. Thirty-seven male swimmers performed a test battery, including shoulder isokinetic torque, shoulder range of motion (ROM), vertical jump, anthropometric, and in-water force tests. Additionally, the best official performance in the events of 50 and 200 m front crawl were obtained. Interlimb asymmetries were calculated for all tested metrics, and Pearson and Spearman’s correlations were used to determine the association between the metrics (and their asymmetries) and swimming performance. Results showed that most of the dry-land metrics were significantly associated with 50 m front crawl (r = -0.59 to -0.83) and 200 m front crawl (r = -0.48 to -0.62) performance, and with peak force at tethered swimming (r = 0.54 to 0.80), except the ROM test (r = -0.22 to 0.33). None of the asymmetries originating from the dry-land tests were significantly correlated with swimming performance (ρ = -0.29 to 0.34). In conclusion, most dry-land outcomes measured are related to swimming performance, while the dry-land inter-limb asymmetries are not.

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Sports Biomechanics. Citation: Knihs, D. A., Bishop, C., Athayde, M. S. da S., Gomes, E. W., & Dal Pupo, J. (2025). Are dry-land measurements and their asymmetries related to swimming performance? Sports Biomechanics, 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1080/14763141.2025.2453555 . It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.