ABSTRACT
The aim of the study was to examine the relationships between the movements, of the upper limb joints, in the three dimensions. 44 swimmers were filmed during the 100m freestyle races of the national Championships, using two videocameras. According to Schleihauf’s method, the coordinates of the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder were obtained In the horizontal axis, the wrist presented a sinusoïdal path. This joint moved forward, then backward in the middle of the time of the stroke, and forward again before the exit. The elbow had a sinusoïdal path but flater than the wrist.The shoulder had a linear displacement. In the lateral axis, the wrist have a tendancy to move outsweep in the middle part of the stroke, contrary to the elbow which moved insweep. During all the stroke, the shoulder had an inside displacement. For the vertical axis, all the joints moved down The relationships between each dimension showed that the hip velocity was related to the horizontal and vertical displacements of the joints and not linked to lateral movements.
