The Swimmer’s Metabolome Project: Characterising the Metabolic Responses to Swimming Sessions of Different Exercise Intensities

Individualisation of swimming training and recovery methods to match an athlete’s physiology is problematic given the paucity of physiological information able to be collected at the poolside. Whereas blood lactate measurement provides information about one metabolite (the product of metabolic reactions), metabolomics uses mass spectroscopy methods to provide a detailed overview of hundreds of metabolic pathways from a single capillary blood or urine sample. In undertaking the collaboration, the parties will use molecular phenotyping and epigenetic analysis to compare the responses to swimming sessions performed at law, moderate and high intensities in elite swimmers to provide a more comprehensive overview of energetic responses to exercise.