Britain: Swimming will be targeting 35 medals at the Commonwealth Games in October, we're told by UK Sport, the funding and support agency for British Olympic sports. Assuming they are talking about the whole of Britain, the target is not particularly ambitious: it comes in at two medals fewer than British swimmers - for England, Scotland and Wales - won at Melbourne 2006. The target is described as part of the "Latest Mission 2012 submissions show that sports are well on track with their preparations for London 2012".
New Zealand: Inspiratory muscle training (IMT), a technique used to correct or increase respiratory function by improving the performance of the muscles involved in inhalation, has been shown to have a "small positive effect" on athletes focussing on distances of up to 200m, according to scientists writing in the European Journal of Applied Physiology. After looking at three distances for their research, the team concluded: "6 weeks of IMT has a small positive effect on swimming performance in club-level trained swimmers in events shorter than 400 m". The findings are summed up this: "To determine the influence of IMT upon swimming performance over 3 competitive distances, 16 competitive club-level swimmers were assigned at random to either an experimental (pressure threshold IMT) or sham IMT placebo control group. performed a series of physiological and performance tests, before and following 6 weeks of IMT, including (1) an incremental swim test to the limit of tolerance to determine lactate, heart rate and perceived exertion responses; (2) standard measures of lung function (forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in 1 s, peak expiratory flow) and maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP); and (3) 100, 200 and 400 m swim time trials. Training utilised a hand-held pressure threshold device and consisted of 30 repetitions, twice per day. Relative to control, the IMT group showed the following percentage changes in swim times: 100 m, -1.70% (90% confidence limits, +/- 1.4%), 200 m, -1.5% (+/- 1.0), and 400 m, 0.6% (+/- 1.2). Large effects were observed for MIP and rates of perceived exertion," wrote A.E. Kilding and colleagues. Contact: A.E. Kilding, AUT University, Sch Sport & Recreat, Fac Hlth & Environm Sci, Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1020, New Zealand.
