Statistical analysis of the data was performed using SPSS 20.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences,
IBM Corporation, NY, USA). For the correlational analysis, non-parametric Spearman’s rank correlation
coefficients were calculated to assess correlations between the ankle flexibility, ankle muscle
strength and the dolphin kick performance. To analyze the untaped versus taped condition, variables
were grouped into 3 main categories, namely flexibility, performance and kinematic variables. Assessment
of variance (ANOVA) for repeated measures was performed to evaluate the main effect of the
intervention on these 3 categories. Interaction of gender was investigated by adding this parameter
as between-subjects factor in the ANOVA. When a significant main effect of the intervention was
established, dependent T-tests were performed on the individual variables to identify specific intervention
outcomes. Results were considered significant at an a-level of 0.05.