Can the curriculum be used to estimate critical velocity in young competitive swimmers?

The aims of the present study were to assess critical velocityusing the swimmer curriculum in front crawl events and tocompare critical velocity to the velocity corresponding to a 4mmol·l-1 of blood lactate concentration and to the velocity of a30 min test. the sample included 24 high level male swimmersranged between 14 and 16 years old. for each subject the criticalvelocity, the velocity corresponding to a 4 mmol·l-1 of bloodlactate concentration and the mean velocity of a 30 min testwere determined. the critical velocity was also estimated byconsidering the best performance of a swimmer over severaldistances based on the swimmer curriculum. critical velocityincluding 100, 200 and 400 m events was not different from thevelocity of 4 mmol·l-1 of blood lactate concentration. criticalvelocity including all the swimmer events was not different fromthe velocity of a 30 min test. the assessment of critical velocitybased upon the swimmer curriculum would therefore seem to bea good approach to determine the aerobic ability of a swimmer.the selection of the events to be included in critical velocityassessment must be a main concern in the evaluation of theswimmer.