Investigating Association Between Spine, Scapular, Shoulder and Core in Swimmers

The aim of this observational study is to investigate relationship between cervical, thoracic, lumbar and thoracolumbar spine posture, spine movement, scapular dyskinesia, shoulder strength and core muscle endurance in healthy competitive youth swimmers in comparison with healthy recreational swimmers. Study expected to include 44 participants which is distributed into experiment (n=22) and control (n=22) groups. The participants will be taken from Turkish swimming clubs which are Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, ENKA, etc. between march and may of 2024. All of the research will be done in PT Academy clinic which is located in Turkey. The ages of the swimmers will be between 12-24. Experiment group should be a competitive swimmer that were also, participating swimming training in 6 days a week which is consisting of at least 12 hours of swimming training. They should pass Turkish swimming championship qualification times in order to participate in this study. Participants who have any systemic, neurologic, tumoral and cardiopulmonary pathologies excluded. Swimmers that compete in open water races are excluded. Participants that had orthopedic problem or surgical procedure in the past 6 months had been excluded. Inclusion criteria of the control group are different than the experiment group. They don't need to be a competitive swimmer as well as they don't need prerequisites of being a competitive swimmer. But, exclusion criteria remained same with experimental group except being open water swimmer. Before assessments participants will perform 10 minutes of warm up consisting of thigh, arm and core muscles as well as steady state aerobic exercise. Cervical lordosis, thoracal kyphosis, lumbar lordosis and thoracolumbar position degree will be assessed with double inclinometer. Core endurance will be assessed with trunk anterior flexion test, trunk posterior extensor test and lateral plank test. Ratios of core endurance parameters will be used in statistical analysis in order to compare with normative data. Spinal movement will be assessed via bubble inclinometer. For spinal movement cervical, lumbar, thoracal and thoracolumbar flexion and extension motion will be assessed. Also, thoracal and thoracolumbar rotation range of motion will be recorded. Scapular dyskinesia test will be used in order to assess scapular dyskinesia. Shoulder strength will be assessed via using microfet hand held dynamometer. Both isometric and eccentric shoulder external rotation strength will be measured. Ratios between these two values will be used in the statistical analysis. Results will be compared with each other between competitive and recreational swimmer group. SPSS analysis system will be used in order to make statistical analysis. For mean analysis t test or Mann Whitney u test will be used according to distributions of the groups. For the correlation analysis regression and mediation analysis will be used. Mean comparison will be done in between group setting. On the other hand correlation investigation of parameters will be done within group setting only including competitive swimmer group. As a result difference between recreational and competitive swimmers will be revealed as well as association between posture and other variables will be revealed with correlation between parameters.

Inclusion criteria

• Being a competitive swimmer.
• Being between 12-24 ages.
• Participating swimming training at least 6 days a week.
• Swimming faster than Turkish National Championship participation qualification times in their age group.
• Participating swimming training at least 12 hours a week.
• Should start swimming at least 6 years before.

Exclusion criteria

• Being an open water swimmer.
• Having systemic, cardiopulmonary and neurological pathology.
• Having orthopedic pathology in the past 6 months.
• Having surgical history in past 6 months.
• Having tumoral condition.
• Having spine pathology in past 6 months.

Inclusion criteria

for control group:

• Being a recreational swimmer.
• Being between 12-24 ages.

Exclusion criteria

for control group:

• Having systemic, cardiopulmonary and neurological pathology.
• Having orthopedic pathology in the past 6 months.
• Having surgical history in past 6 months.
• Having tumoral condition.
• Having spine pathology in past 6 months.