In short-distance swimming races, the time that elapses during the start phase (15-m) contributes significantly to the total race time (Cossor & Mason, 2001). Therefore, to enhance swimming performance in short races, it is necessary to improvement the start performance. In the kick-start in competitive swimming, swimmers place either their right or left foot on the front edge of the starting block and their other foot on the back plate (Fig. 1). Regarding the above-water phase, Tor et al. (2015) reported that 81% of the variance in start performance could be accounted for by horizontal velocity at take-off. Therefore, a higher horizontal velocity at take-off will lead to improved start performance. Moreover, in the kick-start, the impulse from the front foot was dominant with respect to generating vertical velocity at take-off, whereas the impulse from the rear foot was dominant for horizontal velocity (Ikeda et al., 2016; Takeda et al., 2017). As noted above, we assert that the front and rear legs play different roles in the kick-start. With respect to leg characteristics, however, it remains unclear which foot should be placed on the starting block`s front edge or back plate. A previous study reported that the stronger leg should be positioned to the rear on the starting block (Burkhardt et al., 2023). Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate whether the stronger leg should be placed in the front or rear when setting up the kick-start posture. It was hypothesized that swimmers would be able to perform better by using their stronger leg in the rear, in the kick-start posture.
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