Methodological aspects of specialized perceptions evaluation of young swimmers with various sports skills

On the basis of scientific and methodical literature extensive review the authors analyze formation and development of specialized perceptions of young swimmers with different skills: a sense of time, a sense of pace and space, demonstrated both on land and in water. Two directions that are most appropriate for young swimmers’ specialized perceptions measurements are described: 1) to determine characteristics of absolute sensitivity thresholds of individual analyzers under indifferent activity; 2) to analyze specialized perceptions by performing special tasks in specific conditions of motor activities. One component of the so-called «sense of water» is «relative pitch», which evaluates a swimmer’s ability to feel water support and is calculated in terms of technique efficiency coefficient. Body position during swimming can be assessed by stroke effort efficiency factor, which shows the ability of an athlete to make the most streamlined position. As a result it is stated that special perception of tempo, time and space for young crawl swimmers do not depend on athlete age and have considerable individual differences. The results of experimental work show that there is only one sensitive period of time to improve a sense of tempo in water and on land (at the age of 10-11) and a favorable age period to improve a sense of time in water (at the age of 11-12).