O efeito da cafeína sobre o desempenho em movimentos específicos do nado artístico

Abstract

Artistic swimming is an aquatic sport with complex skills and requires the combination of physical capacities such as flexibility, agility, power, strength and endurance. In turn caffeine is possibly the most consumed psychoactive substance in the world but never before has been determined whether caffeine can benefit athletes from artistic swimming during their performance. Sixteen athletes of artistic swimming (5.6 ± 2.8 years of practice of the modality, 17.4 ± 3.2 of age, 54.6 ± 6.4 kg and 162.2 ± 4.0 cm of height) Participated in this study. A battery of specific tests of the modality Was performed twice in crossover mode with supplementation of 5 mg.kg-1 of caffeine and placebo. The Shapiro-Wilk test and a T-test for dependent samples were used. There were significant differences in passive flexibility tests (Anteroposterior right 15.7 cm with caffeine vs 11.7 cm with placebo, Anteroposterior left 24.6 cm with caffeine vs 19.1 cm with placebo), Aryan spin (Sideways split 139.8 º with caffeine VS 143.5 º with placebo), Body jump (39.7 cm with caffeine vs 41.3 cm with placebo), barracuda (18.8 cm with caffeine vs 21.3 cm with placebo) and maximum can-can time (12.3 s with caffeine vs 14.5 s with placebo). The Maximum incremental test did not accuse relevant statistical differences. Caffeine proved to be effective in most of the specific tests performed, however, further studies are needed to better understand the mechanisms of this supplement in the performance of artistic swimming athletes.