46 Chapter 3 The performance progression during phase B (PPB) is defined as the percentage change a swimmer has moved towards the prevailing world record (see equation 3). In other words, PPB is relative to the gap a swimmer needs to close in order to break the prevailing world record. PPB reflects the difference between the best rST of the current season (current season best rST) and the first rST divided by the difference between the first rST and the prevailing world record or fastest time in textile (see equation 3). A positive outcome indicated that a swimmer has moved towards the prevailing world record and improved relative to his first rST. An outcome of 0% indicated that the swimmer’s gap to the world record stayed the same and that the swimmer did not improve relative to his first rST. As an example, we illustrate the pattern of IPP of a fictive swimmer with a season best rST of 106.5 in the previous season (2016/2017), a first rST of 107.6% in the current season (2017/2018) and a season best rST of 106.0% in the current season (2017/2018). His PPA will be (107.6 (first rST) / 106.5 (previous season best rST)) * 100%. In short his PPA is (107.6 / 106.5) * 100% = 101.0%. An outcome above the 100% means that the swimmer’s SL is slower than his best rST of the previous season. His PPB will be – (106.0 (current season best rST) -107.6 (first rST)) / 107.6 (first rST) – 100%. In short his PPB is –(-1.6) / 7.6 *100 = 21%. A positive outcome indicates the swimmer moved towards the prevailing world record and that he improved his swim performance between the start of the current season and the moment he swum his best rST of the current season. The pattern of IPP of this fictive swimmer is characterized by a small decrease in phase A (1% above his previous attained performance level), followed by an increase during phase B. Statistical analysis All data were analyzed for male and female swimmers separately using IBM SPSS Statistics 24 and R (R Core Team, 2019) (R version 3.6.0). Mean scores and standard deviations were calculated for swim performance (previous season best rST, first rST and current season best rST), performance progression in phase A (PPA) and performance progression in phase B (PPB) for the two performance groups per age category (see Appendix B and C). The normality of the distributions was assumed for n >30, according to the
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