Just out of curiosity...if all things being equal, how much could a person improve simply by losing weight. Is there a formula that could properly express this.
The numbers I'm working with are
6'3" my height
215 my current weight
23.4 my 50free scy time at nats last april
now my weight at nats was 215 after losing 20lbs over the season. I'm really paying attention to my diet and nutrition and trying to trim down another 10lbs.
Any thoughts???
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Former Member
My thoughts are: no way. There are too many factors at play here. If your weight decreases obviously you will require less energy to move you through the water from a pure F=ma standpoint. The other factor, though, is how your weight (or body composition) affects your form drag in the water. A higher body fat percentage will make you ride higher in the water, so having that additional weight is not inherently a negative like it would be in land activities like running. So you're kind of working on both sides of F=ma. Lowering your mass will require less force, but it's unclear how much force will be required to overcome drag at your new weight.
I think F=ma is a non-factor in the water. Any of the swim strokes is a cycle of negative and positive acceleration. The negative acceleration comes from drag, which does not strictly depend on mass, although kind of indirectly via body shape like you said. Greater mass is a good thing in the slowing-down phases of the stroke, provided the drag force is constant, because the negative value of acceleration is inversely related to mass. Imagine throwing a ping pong ball versus a golf ball. Which one slows down faster? The flip side of this, of course, is that it's harder to accelerate in the positive acceleration phases of the stroke. But it should be a wash, right?
My thoughts are: no way. There are too many factors at play here. If your weight decreases obviously you will require less energy to move you through the water from a pure F=ma standpoint. The other factor, though, is how your weight (or body composition) affects your form drag in the water. A higher body fat percentage will make you ride higher in the water, so having that additional weight is not inherently a negative like it would be in land activities like running. So you're kind of working on both sides of F=ma. Lowering your mass will require less force, but it's unclear how much force will be required to overcome drag at your new weight.
I think F=ma is a non-factor in the water. Any of the swim strokes is a cycle of negative and positive acceleration. The negative acceleration comes from drag, which does not strictly depend on mass, although kind of indirectly via body shape like you said. Greater mass is a good thing in the slowing-down phases of the stroke, provided the drag force is constant, because the negative value of acceleration is inversely related to mass. Imagine throwing a ping pong ball versus a golf ball. Which one slows down faster? The flip side of this, of course, is that it's harder to accelerate in the positive acceleration phases of the stroke. But it should be a wash, right?
