Tom J Vandenbogaerde

Publications (5)14.37 Total impact

• Article: Using Athletes' World Rankings to Assess Performance of Countries.

  Rita M Malcata, Tom J Vandenbogaerde, Will G Hopkins
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: There is a need for fair measures of country sport performance that include athletes not winning medals. PURPOSE: To develop a measure of country performance based on athlete ranks in the sport of swimming. METHODS: Annual top-150 ranks in Olympic pool-swimming events were downloaded for 1990 through 2011. For each athlete on a given rank, a score representing the athlete's performance potential was estimated as the proportion of athletes on that rank who ever achieved top rank. Country scores were calculated by summing its athletes' scores over all 32 events. Reliability and convergent validity were assessed via year-to-year correlations and correlations with medal counts at major competitions. The method was also applied to ranks at the 2012 Olympics to evaluate country swimming performance. RESULTS: The performance score of an athlete on a given rank was closely approximated by 1/rank. This simpler score has two practical interpretations: an athlete ranked seventh (for example) has a chance of 1/7 of ever achieving top rank; and for purposes of evaluating country performance, seven such athletes are equivalent to one athlete on the top rank. Country scores obtained by summing 1/rank of its athletes had high reliability and validity. This approach produced scores for 168 countries at the Olympics, whereas only 17 countries won medals. CONCLUSIONS: We have used the sport of swimming to develop a fair and inclusive measure representing country performance potential. This measure should be suitable for assessing countries in any sports with world rankings or with athletes at major competitions.
  International journal of sports physiology and performance 04/2013; · 1.80 Impact Factor
• Source

  Available from: David B Pyne

  Article: A Competition-based Design to Assess Performance of a Squad of Elite Athletes.

  Tom J Vandenbogaerde, Will G Hopkins, David B Pyne
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: There is need for valid and powerful research designs to assess performance effects of interventions in squads of elite athletes. PURPOSE: To develop a design for investigating effects on competition performance, using performance of athletes in other squads as a control. METHODS: We used competition swim times downloaded from USAswimming.org for a season ending in the US Open, and assumed an intervention had been applied to athletes in one of the larger squads (Ford) at one competition (Santa Clara). Data were included only for swimmers who achieved >900 Hy-Tek points at the USA Swimming Nationals. Each swimmer's points were used to select their best event. Times for the resulting 368 best-event swims in 7 competitions by 148 swimmers in 19 squads were analyzed to determine the uncertainty (90% confidence interval) of the effect of the hypothetical intervention. Further analyses were performed with other selection criteria. Uncertainties were compared with those in other recent studies of competitive senior swimmers. RESULTS: Uncertainty in the effect of an intervention applied to Ford for Santa Clara would have been ±0.8%. Applying other data-selection criteria resulted in generally more uncertainty. Uncertainties in recent studies of competitive swimmers using conventional designs ranged between ±0.7% and ±2.2%. CONCLUSION: For the sport of swimming, the effects with this new design are at least as precise as those of conventional research designs using performance tests, and the outcomes are likely to have higher validity. The new design should be useful for assessing the effect of an intervention representing a substantial change from a baseline of usual practice in any sport where athletes compete often against athletes of other squads.
  Medicine and science in sports and exercise 07/2012; · 3.71 Impact Factor
• Article: Effects of acute carbohydrate supplementation on endurance performance: a meta-analysis.

  Tom J Vandenbogaerde, Will G Hopkins
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: Research on the performance effects of acute carbohydrate supplementation is comprehensive. Here we present the first meta-analytic review of this research. Eighty-eight randomized crossover studies in which carbohydrate supplements were consumed with or without protein before and/or during exercise provided 155 estimates for performance effects in time-to-exhaustion tests or in time trials with or without a preload. For the mixed-model meta-analysis, all effects were converted into percentage changes in mean power in a non-preloaded time trial and weighted using percentage standard errors derived from exact p-values (in a minority of studies) or from estimated errors of measurement (in all other studies). Publication bias was assessed with a plot of t-values for the random-effect solutions versus standard errors. Probabilistic inferences were derived with reference to thresholds for small, moderate and large effects on performance of 0.5, 1.5 and 2.7%. Publication bias was reduced by excluding studies with a standard error >1.25%. In the remaining 73 studies and 122 estimates, the meta-analysed performance effects of carbohydrate supplements ranged from clear large improvements of ∼6% to clear moderate impairments of ∼2%. The best supplement inferred from the analysis consisted of a ∼3-10% carbohydrate-plus-protein drink providing ∼0.7 g/kg/h glucose polymers, ∼0.2 g/kg/h fructose and ∼0.2 g/kg/h protein. Substantial increases in the benefit of a supplement were probably small with an additional 9-hour fast and with the inclusion of ∼0.2 g/kg/h of protein, probably small to moderate with ingesting the first bolus not at the start of exercise but 1-4 hours before exercise, and possibly small with increasing the frequency of ingestion by three boluses per hour. Substantial reductions in the benefit of a supplement were possibly moderate with a supplement providing >0.25 g/kg/h fructose, and possibly small with an increase in ambient temperature of 10°C. The effect in subjects with maximal oxygen consumption higher by 10 mL/kg/min was probably trivial, and the effects of exercise duration were dependent on the concentration of carbohydrate plus protein in the supplement. The effect of including salt was unexpectedly trivial, and the effect of gender was unclear. Carbohydrate supplements with an appropriate composition and administration regimen can have large benefits on endurance performance. More research and better reporting are required to investigate the moderating effects of gender and salt.
  Sports Medicine 09/2011; 41(9):773-92. · 5.16 Impact Factor
• Article: Monitoring acute effects on athletic performance with mixed linear modeling.

  Tom J Vandenbogaerde, Will G Hopkins
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: There is a need for a sophisticated approach to track athletic performance and to quantify factors affecting it in practical settings. To demonstrate the application of mixed linear modeling for monitoring athletic performance. Elite sprint and middle-distance swimmers (three females and six males; aged 21-26 yr) performed 6-13 time trials in training and competition in the 9 wk before and including Olympic-qualifying trials, all in their specialty event. We included a double-blind, randomized, diet-controlled crossover intervention, in which the swimmers consumed caffeine (5 mg x kg(-1) body mass) or placebo. The swimmers also knowingly consumed varying doses of caffeine in some time trials. We used mixed linear modeling of log-transformed swim time to quantify effects on performance in training versus competition, in morning versus evening swims, and with use of caffeine. Predictor variables were coded as 0 or 1 to represent absence or presence, respectively, of each condition and were included as fixed effects. The date of each performance test was included as a continuous linear fixed effect and interacted with the random effect for the athlete to represent individual differences in linear trends in performance. Most effects were clear, owing to the high reliability of performance times in training and competition (typical errors of 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively). Performance time improved linearly by 0.8% per 4 wk. The swimmers performed substantially better in evenings versus mornings and in competition versus training. A 100-mg dose of caffeine enhanced performance in training and competition by approximately 1.3%. There were substantial but unclear individual responses to training and caffeine (SD of 0.3% and 0.8%, respectively). Mixed linear modeling can be applied successfully to monitor factors affecting performance in a squad of elite athletes.
  Medicine and science in sports and exercise 07/2010; 42(7):1339-44. · 3.71 Impact Factor
• Article: Effects of acute nutritional interventions on athletic performance

  Tom J Vandenbogaerde
  [show abstract] [hide abstract]
  ABSTRACT: There have been few studies of the effects of nutritional strategies in training and competition settings in elite athletes. This thesis represents four studies that were performed to investigate the effect of specific acute supplementation protocols on performance and/or recovery from exercise. Studies 1-3 were experimental investigations of the recovery and/or performance effects of carbohydrate, carbohydrate-protein or caffeine supplements in elite swimmers. Study 4 was a meta-analytic review of the effects of acute carbohydrate supplementation on endurance performance. In Study 1, we have provided some evidence that consuming carbohydrate during and carbohydrate-protein immediately after a 2-h high-intensity swim session induces better recovery in plasma creatine kinase and salivary IgA compared with consuming water during exercise and carbohydrate-protein immediately after, and compared with consuming only carbohydrates during and immediately after exercise. These effects may indicate reduced muscle damage and better mucosal immunity in the upper respiratory tract. The inclusion of protein in the carbohydrate supplement also reduced inflammatory responses. As demonstrated in the meta-analysis (Study 4), consuming carbohydrate and carbohydrate-protein supplements during exercise can have large benefits in endurance performance: The best supplement inferred from the analysis consisted of the best regime derived from the analysis consisted of ingesting a ~3-10% carbohydrate-plus-protein drink providing ~0.7 g•kg-1•h-1 glucose polymers, ~0.2 g•kg-1•h-1 fructose and ~0.2 g•kg 1•h 1 protein in multiple boluses before and during exercise. Caution is required to extrapolate the results of the meta-analysis to short-duration exercise, because the meta-analysis included only one study with exercise duration <25 min. In Study 2, we found possible performance impairments in the last step of a 7x200-m step test (change in performance time 0.9%; 90% confidence limits ±1.1%) and in a 100-m time trial (0.1%; ±0.6%) with ingestion of a carbohydrate-protein supplement. In Study 3, we have provided some evidence that ingesting ~100 mg caffeine 75 min before training or competition time trials enhances performance in elite swimmers by ~1.3%. This intervention was part of a methodological investigation of a novel application of mixed linear modeling for monitoring athletic performance. Through this PhD research, we have demonstrated clear performance and recovery effects with specific acute supplementation protocols in elite swimmers. We have provided a novel approach to investigate effects of treatments in elite athletes, and we have demonstrated large effects with carbohydrate supplementation regimes in endurance exercise in an innovative meta-analytic review. We encourage athletes, sports scientists and coaches to estimate magnitudes of effects of treatments and individual responses to treatments using linear modeling of performance times.