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During a horizontal underwater push-off, performance is strongly limited by the presence of water, inducing resistances due to its dense and viscous nature. At the same time, aquatic environments offer a support to the swimmer with the hydrostatic buoyancy counteracting the effects of gravity. Squat jump is a vertical terrestrial push-off with a maximal lower limb extension limited by the gravity force, which attracts the body to the ground. Following this observation, we characterized the effects of environment (water vs. air) on the mechanical characteristics of the leg push-off. Underwater horizontal wall push-off and vertical on-land squat jumps of two local swimmers were evaluated with force plates, synchronized with a lateral camera. To better understand the resistances of the aquatic movement, a quasi-steady Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed. The force-, velocity- and power-time curves presented similarities in both environments corresponding to a proximo-distal joints organization. In water, swimmers developed a three-step explosive rise of force, which the first one mainly related to the initiation of body movement. Drag increase, which was observed from the beginning to the end of the push-off, related to the continuous increase of body velocity with high values of drag coefficient (CD) and frontal areas before take-off. Specifically, with velocity, frontal area was the main drag component to explain inter-individual differences, suggesting that the streamlined position of the lower limbs is decisive to perform an efficient push-off. This study motivates future CFD simulations under more ecological, unsteady conditions.

Our aim was to clarify the relationship between power output and the different mechanical parameters influencing it during squat jumps, and to further use this relationship in a new computation method to evaluate power output in field conditions. Based on fundamental laws of mechanics, computations were developed to express force, velocity and power generated during one squat jump. This computation method was validated on eleven physically active men performing two maximal squat jumps. During each trial, mean force, velocity and power were calculated during push-off from both force plate measurements and the proposed computations. Differences between the two methods were not significant and lower than 3% for force, velocity and power. The validity of the computation method was also highlighted by Bland and Altman analyses and linear regressions close to the identity line (P