| Title |
Variables that influence Ironman triathlon performance – what changed in the last 35 years?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine, August 2015
|
| DOI | 10.2147/oajsm.s85310 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Beat Knechtle, Raphael Knechtle, Michael Stiefel, Matthias Alexander Zingg, Thomas Rosemann, Christoph Alexander Rüst |
| Abstract |
This narrative review summarizes findings for Ironman triathlon performance and intends to determine potential predictor variables for Ironman race performance in female and male triathletes. A literature search was performed in PubMed using the terms "Ironman", "triathlon", and "performance". All resulting articles were searched for related citations. Age, previous experience, sex, training, origin, anthropometric and physiological characteristics, pacing, and performance in split disciplines were predictive. Differences exist between the sexes for anthropometric characteristics. The most important predictive variables for a fast Ironman race time were age of 30-35 years (women and men), a fast personal best time in Olympic distance triathlon (women and men), a fast personal best time in marathon (women and men), high volume and high speed in training where high volume was more important than high speed (women and men), low body fat, low skin-fold thicknesses and low circumference of upper arm (only men), and origin from the United States of America (women and men). These findings may help athletes and coaches to plan an Ironman triathlon career. Age and previous experience are important to find the right point in the life of a triathlete to switch from the shorter triathlon distances to the Ironman distance. Future studies need to correlate physiological characteristics such as maximum oxygen uptake with Ironman race time to investigate their potential predictive value and to investigate socio-economic aspects in Ironman triathlon. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 27 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Spain | 10 | 37% |
| United Kingdom | 4 | 15% |
| United States | 2 | 7% |
| Ecuador | 1 | 4% |
| France | 1 | 4% |
| Australia | 1 | 4% |
| Unknown | 8 | 30% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 23 | 85% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 3 | 11% |
| Scientists | 1 | 4% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 225 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
| Chile | 1 | <1% |
| Ireland | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 222 | 99% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 87 | 39% |
| Student > Master | 32 | 14% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 20 | 9% |
| Other | 12 | 5% |
| Researcher | 12 | 5% |
| Other | 19 | 8% |
| Unknown | 43 | 19% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Sports and Recreations | 63 | 28% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 36 | 16% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 35 | 16% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 18 | 8% |
| Social Sciences | 7 | 3% |
| Other | 19 | 8% |
| Unknown | 47 | 21% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 27. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 October 2017.
All research outputs
#1,460,526
of 25,571,620 outputs
Outputs from Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine
#36
of 260 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#18,297
of 276,769 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine
#5
of 10 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,571,620 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 260 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 16.7. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 276,769 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 10 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 5 of them.