Background: Swimmers perform dryland muscular endurance (ME) sessions targeting upper or lower limbs before swimming sessions, potentially inducing localized or non-localized muscular fatigue. Aim: To examine the effects of ME applied with either the upper or lower limbs on subsequent sprint swimming performance using arms-only or legs-only swimming and physiological responses during whole-stroke submaximal swimming. Methods: Twelve competitive swimmers (15.1 ± 1.1 years) completed five experimental conditions in a randomized, counterbalanced order. Swimmers performed a 20-minute ME session for the upper limbs (MEarm) or lower limbs (MEleg) before in-water testing, which included 2x50 m front crawl arms-only (SWarm; pullbuoy) or legs-only (SWleg; kickboard), followed by a 400 m front crawl at 94% of maximal speed. The conditions were: (a) MEarm-SWarm, (b) MEleg-SWleg, (c) MEleg-SWarm, (d) MEarm-SWleg, and (e) control (CON). Performance time, kinematics, blood lactate (BL), handgrip strength (HG), countermovement jump (CMJ), and medicine ball throw (MBT) were assessed before and after sessions. A two-way analysis of variance for repeated measures was used for the statistical analysis. Results: Performance time in the 2x50 m and 400 m tests (p = 0.72 - 0.82), kinematic variables (p = 0.91 - 0.99), and HG (p = 0.79) did not differ between conditions. BL was higher after dryland training in lower compared to upper limb sessions (9.3 ± 2.6 vs. 6.1 ± 1.8 mmol/l, p = 0.01). Compared to baseline, CMJ was decreased following MEarm, MEleg, and CON (MEarm: 2.5 ± 3.5%, MEleg: 6.6 ± 4.6%, CON: 4.8 ± 3.1%, p = 0.01), while MBT increased following swimming (MEarm-Swarm: 1.4 ± 4.2%, 95%CI [-0.9, 3.8], MEleg-SWleg: 1.1 ± 6.4%, 95%CI [-2.5, 4.7], MEleg-Swarm: 1.5 ± 6.7%, 95%CI [-5.3, 2.3], MEarm-SWleg: 1.2 ± 5.9%, 95%CI [-2.1, 4.6], CON: 0.9 ± 3.2%, 95%CI [-2.8, 0.9], p = 0.04). Conclusions: Dryland ME sessions targeting the upper or lower limbs may be performed before a sprint swimming session in adolescent swimmers. However, these findings should be confirmed in other swimming populations
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