"For runners, sprint/power athletes were defined as those who competed in 100–400 m races and high jump, while distance athletes competed in races ≥800 m. Short distance swimmers comprised those competing in 50–200 m races while middle-distance/distance athletes competed in 400–1500 m races. Eleven swimmers swam freestyle, 3 swam breaststroke and 2 swam backstroke."
The phrase "there were interesting if small differences" makes me suspect nothing statistically significant was found. Digging into the paper, I found the sentence I was expecting:
"Further research is required to delineate whether these observations are a product of a superior exercise stimulus, or a necessary adaptation to promote filling during upright exercise."
Any small sample of undergraduates always gives the same scientific result: more grant money required.
But "≥800m" could be anything from "some 800 and even a 1.5k" (sub 5 minute efforts) to "mostly marathon and some ultramarathon" (multiple hours). Swimming tops out at 1.5k, which would be a sub twenty minute effort for world class athletes. The longer ones are clearly anaerobic efforts, but still a long shot from endurance disciplines. Except for those six individuals who might run utramarathons or 800 meters, we don't know.
The study is nicely apples/apples if those six are well within the track running range (800, 1.5k, 5k, even 10k would be close enough in duration to 1.5k swimming which is the longest subdiscipline there), but if there are road endurance runners in the group, they will likely skew everything from a comparison between running and swimming to a badly made comparison between athletes aiming at multi-hours efforts and athletes aiming at minutes or even seconds.
From the paper itself:
"For runners, sprint/power athletes were defined as those who competed in 100–400 m races and high jump, while distance athletes competed in races ≥800 m. Short distance swimmers comprised those competing in 50–200 m races while middle-distance/distance athletes competed in 400–1500 m races. Eleven swimmers swam freestyle, 3 swam breaststroke and 2 swam backstroke."
The phrase "there were interesting if small differences" makes me suspect nothing statistically significant was found. Digging into the paper, I found the sentence I was expecting:
"Further research is required to delineate whether these observations are a product of a superior exercise stimulus, or a necessary adaptation to promote filling during upright exercise."
Any small sample of undergraduates always gives the same scientific result: more grant money required.