Swimming Talent Identification and Recognition

For many years, top athletes and teams have used technology to measure everything from:

• the speed of a baseball
• to the force generated by a helmet crash
• to the amount of oxygen consumed on a run
• to the hip rotation on a golf swing.

In addition, new materials, new manufacturing processes, and new designs have all enhanced athlete performance, in some cases stirring up controversy in the process (e.g. swimsuits).

Digital technologies are now also used in almost every major sport. In fact, if you perform even a basic search using the words sports and technology you will find more references than you could explore in a lifetime. If you add the word “swimming” that number drops dramatically. In those that remain, the focus for the majority of cited resources seems to be using video in combination with stroke rate and velocity. But stroke rate (the number of strokes over a specific distance) or velocity (speed over a specific distance) are not exactly technologic innovations, even when coupled with video. At the same time, more scientifically-obtained measurements, like peak hand force and active drag coefficient, are not viewed as particularly useful by the age-group and college-level coaches who can demonstrate success in the pool without integrating such measures into their programs.

Dr. Rod Havriluk, president of Swimming Technology Research, is hoping to change that perception and is finding success internationally with his patented technology and biomechanical approach to improving swimming technique. Havriluk, who has written extensively on the quantitative analyses of swimming technique, has devised a technique assessment that can identify swimmers at any age who have the critical elements needed to be competitive at the highest levels -- even when they don’t currently have the times to prove it.

This data-driven assessment, using force measurements synchronized with video and stroke biomechanical analysis, examines five different data factors in addition to the traditional time-for-distance measurement. The result is a technique “score” that can be used to identify those swimmers who have the potential -- verified by quantitative data - - to be at the very top echelon of swimmers. The analyses have also proven to be useful in determining factors limiting even top athletes from progressing to the next performance level. (Havriluk’s work with Olympic-level swimmers has confirmed that even those at the top of their game have some limitation that, when effectively addressed, allows them to swim even faster.)

In addition to talent identification, the benefits of recognizing a technique score for every swimmer can be organized into three categories: (1) Support for Technique Improvement; (2) Injury Prevention; and (3) Resource Allocation. These benefits are explained on other pages in this section.