EFFECT OF 4 WEEKS OF DEEP-WATER RUN TRAINING ON RUNNING PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this study was to determine whether trained competitive runners could maintain on-land running performance using 4 wk of deep water run training instead of on-land training. Eleven well-trained c ompetitive runners (10 males, 1 female; ages, 32.5 +/- 5.4 yr; height 179.8 +/- 9.3 cm weight, 70.4 +/- 6.7 kg (mean +/- SD)) trained exclus ively using deep water run training for 3 wk. Subjects trained 5-6 d.w k(-1) for a total of 20-24 sessions (mean +/- SD, 22 +/- 1.5 sessions) . Instruction and practice sessions were conducted prior to the traini ng period. Before and after the deep water run training, subjects comp leted a 5-km race on the treadmill using a computer based system, a su bmaximal run at the same absolute workload to assess running economy, and a combined lactate threshold and maximal oxygen consumption test. No significant differences were found for (mean +/- SEM): 5-km run tim e (pre, 1142.7 +/- 39.5 s; post, 1149.8 +/- 36.9 s; P = 0.28), submaxi mal oxygen consumption (pre, 44.5 +/- 1.2 mL.kg(-1).min(-1); post, 45. 3 +/- 1.5 mL.kg(-1).min(-1); P = 0.47), lactate threshold running velo city (pre, 249.1 +/- 0.9 m.min(-1); post, 253.6 +/- 6.3 m.min(-1); P = 0.44), or maximal oxygen consumption (pre, 63.4 +/- 1.3 mL.kg(-1).min (-1); post, 62.2 +/- 1.3 mL.kg(-1).min(-1); P = 0.11). Also no differe nces were found among Global Mood State pre-training, each week during training, and posttraining. Competitive distance runners maintained r unning performance using 4 wk of deep water run training as a replacem ent for on-land training.