Consider this year's SEC winning times vs. the NCAA record times:
400 Yard IM WomenNCAA: N 3:58.23 2/26/2010 Julia Smit, Stanford
1 Beisel, Elizabeth FR Florida-FL 4:03.27 3:58.35 (+.12)
400 Yard IM Men
NCAA: N 3:35.98 3/27/2009 Tyler Clary, Michigan
1 Solaeche Gomez, Ed Florida-FL 3:47.99 3:43.57 A (+7.59)
Hypothesis: the change in men's legal swimming suits has had a much greater effect than the change in women's legal swimming suits.
Is this true? I don't know.
However, I do think it is possible to find out.
Have any of our mathematically astute forumites yet attempted a regression analysis to see how much the change in suit technology has affected women and men swimmers, respectively?
This may be a cherry-picked example, but it looks as if the current crop of legal suits for women have resulted in virtually no change in the 400 IM.
In men, on the other hand, the change looks to be about 7.5 seconds. Granted, you can't make too many assumptions comparing NCAA records (with full body suits) vs. SEC championship times (in the new suits) in just one event.
However, it's now been two years since the B70 and other body kayak flotation devices have been illegalized for both genders, and replaced by the respective FINA approved garments we are now allowed to wear.
There have been reams of times recorded in college and masters databases, ripe for the plucking!
Surely someone out there has already been (or could be cajoled into) crunching sufficient quantities of data to come up with some rough guidelines for the impact the suit change has had!
Surely I am not the only one hoping to apportion my performance declines according to 1) the toll of years, and 2) the change in suit technology.
In my age group, here are the times in the 400 IM in 2010 (body kayaks) vs. 2011 (jammers for men; new short john legal body suits for women)--note, I highlighted in red those who made the list both years in the same age group, allowing for a better person-to-person comparison:
MEN
400 Individual Medley SCY Men 55-59 (2010)
1 Michael T Mann 55 CMS Colorado 4:28.69
2 Donald B Gilchrist 56 NCMS North Carolina 4:40.65
3 Phil L Dodson 57 IM Illinois 4:45.42
4 Bob Yant 56 IM Illinois 4:47.76
5 Jim Clemmons 59 MAM Pacific 4:48.86
6 Peter M Guadagni 55 WCM Pacific 4:49.17
7 Neil R Wasserman 55 O*H* Lake Erie 4:50.68
8 Stephen D Kevan 55 OREG Oregon 4:52.39
9 Thomas G Bliss 55 ORLM Florida 4:54.56
10 Jimmy Welborn 55 RATS Southeastern 4:54.94
400 Individual Medley SCY Men 55-59 (2011)
1 Michael T Mann 56 CMS Colorado 4:30.56
2 Rick Colella 59 PNA Pacific Northwest 4:35.84
3 Timothy M Shead 58 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 4:45.05
4 Donald B Gilchrist 57 NCMS North Carolina 4:50.58
5 Neil R Wasserman 55 O*H* Lake Erie 4:53.22
6 Peter M Guadagni 56 WCM Pacific 4:56.53
7 Paul G Karas 55 MICH Michigan 4:57.64
8 Mark Montgomery 55 NOVA Southern Pacific 4:59.58
9 Phil L Dodson 58 IM Illinois 5:02.66
10 David C Bright 58 NEM New England 5:05.44
WOMEN
400 Individual Medley SCY Women 55-59 (2010)
1 Laura B Val 58 TAM Pacific 5:03.92
2 Nancy Steadman Martin 55 GSM New Jersey 5:09.76
3 Lo D Knapp 55 UTAH Utah 5:17.95
4 Camille W Thompson 55 PNA Pacific Northwest 5:28.88
5 Shirley A Loftus-Charley 58 VMST Virginia 5:29.09
6 Charlotte M Davis 59 PNA Pacific Northwest 5:33.04
7 Nancy Kryka 55 MINN Minnesota 5:36.70
8 Catherine K Kohn 56 SLAM Ozark 5:40.95
9 Ronda S Nisman 55 MOST South Texas 5:41.99
10 Barbara Protzman 55 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 5:50.96
400 Individual Medley SCY Women 55-59 (2011)
1 Nancy Steadman Martin 56 GSM New Jersey 5:17.93
2 Shirley A Loftus-Charley 59 VMST Virginia 5:28.24
3 Elaine S Valdez 55 MOST South Texas 5:29.46
4 Pat A Sargeant 57 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 5:34.59
5 Evie S Lynch 58 PHX Arizona 5:39.49
6 Nancy Kryka 56 MINN Minnesota 5:47.26
7 Mary M Welsh 57 TCAM Pacific 5:54.69
8 Margaret Hair 55 HMS Inland Northwest 5:59.80
9 Barbara Protzman 56 GOLD Florida Gold Coast 6:02.14
10 Karen Bierwert 58 NEM New England 6:06.35
I concede this does little to prove or disprove my hypothesis. If I am looking at the times correctly, only one 55-59 TT swimmer improved times between 2010 and 2011--Shirley.
The variation in declines shown by all the others of both genders was quite large, from Michael Mann's less than 2 seconds, to Phil Dodson's over 17. All sorts of non-swimming-related factors can play a role here, which is why to get meaningful results, lots and lots of results have to be subjected to what I think Chris Stevenson called a "regression analysis" to draw even quasi-reliable inferences.
Is there someone out there, perhaps a retired math professor with a touch of Asperger's who shares my fascination with this dead-horse-beaten topic, who would be willing to perform just such a regression analysis and share the results on this thread?
I am tempted to add a poll so that we can each vote according to what we want to believe, only to have this subjected to the cold hard reality of scientific inquiry!
Oh, hell. I will add such a poll, at the considerable risk of being drubbed off these forums for the foreseeable future for the sin of trollish monotony.
Jim,
Perhaps the answer to your prayers:
www.swimbrief.net/.../neverwet-product-that-could-ruin-2012.html
Some of the videos are amazing.
Rich, I actually joked for a while about Scotchgarding myself before a race. Afterall, wasn't Teflon one of the coating ingredients in the original Aquablade?
But after writing about the human microbiome, I have decided that coating your skin with compounds like this is not the greatest idea.
Consider this from Wikipedia:
In 1999, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began an investigation into the class of chemicals used in Scotchgard, after receiving information on the global distribution and toxicity of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), the "key ingredient" of Scotchgard. The compound perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), a PFOS precursor, was an ingredient and also has been described as the "key ingredient" of Scotchgard. Under USEPA pressure, in May 2000 3M announced the phaseout of the production of PFOA, PFOS, and PFOS-related products.
3M reformulated Scotchgard and since June 2003 has replaced PFOS with perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS). PFBS has a much shorter half-life in people than PFOS (a little over one month vs. 5.4 years). In May 2009 PFOS was determined to be a persistent organic pollutant (POP) by the Stockholm Convention.
I have tried Googling "is it safe to Rain-X your skin?" but have thus far only managed to glean that it could pinken you up and dry your skin.
I suspect it might do more than this.
Please, Rich, don't take this the wrong way. But you are older than I am, and you've had so many wonderful accomplishments in your swimming life to date.
Would you lube yourself up head to toe with a combination of Rain-X and Scotchgard and let me know if it helps your times?
If so, would you furthermore agree to soak in a mix of the two chemicals for, say, the next several months?
If it has no adverse effects on you, I would then like to have a less healthy fatso type guy who is a bit closer to me in physiology test it out, too.
And if this less than healthy fatso also suffers no ill effects, then maybe, just maybe, I will try it, too!
Thanks in any event for giving me that most precious of commodities: hope, be this of the real or false variety.
Check out these two links:
forums.usms.org/picture.php
forums.usms.org/picture.php
The suit for women costs $595! The one for men a slightly less, but still ludicrous, $395.
Leaving aside whether these Speedo offerings are better than their competitors' equivalent models, is this just marketing gone mad?
$595 is indeed pricey. And I'm not sure they're any faster than the previous generation ... At least the kids wearing them at the VA State champs didn't seem to think so from what I heard. And I didn't see any huge time drops in them, only very marginal ones that could be due to other factors (fast pool, champs meet, better competition, etc.) Some complained that they were too tight, too compressing. Does anyone else have any feedback on the suits?
Some complained that they were too tight, too compressing. Does anyone else have any feedback on the suits?
The Univ of Richmond team ordered them, tried them on, and are leaving them home in favor of the older suits. Not a single person liked them. What a fiasco; I feel sorry for the women sponsored by Speedo who might feel compelled to wear the latest version.
Ah, but is not the removal of artificial assistance, once one has gotten used to it, a form of handicapping?
Consider the plight of the wintry chickadee, used to its daily smorgasbord of seeds at the garden bird feeder. Then suddenly, the estate owners leave for a trip to the Bahamas, and our poor chickadee is left to starve!
You crack me up, Jim.
I miss the suits. It was nice going 21.2 again. But, like Fort, I move on.
The Univ of Richmond team ordered them, tried them on, and are leaving them home in favor of the older suits. Not a single person liked them. What a fiasco; I feel sorry for the women sponsored by Speedo who might feel compelled to wear the latest version.
Thanks Chris. Speedo may have a dud on its hands if all the early feedback is negative.
I'm inclined to wait for the Arena. But I am in desperate need of a new suit and it's unclear when that suit will be released.
DAM Spring Short Course Yards Swim Meet
SPONSORED BY DALLAS AQUATIC MASTERS
February 25, 2012
2nd Annual
REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
WORLD SHORT COURSE YARDS CHAMPIONSHIPS
February 26, 2012
____________________________________________________________
Saturday, February 25
– Meet warm-up at 11:00am, Meet start at 12:00 pm. Saturday’s events will run as a sanctioned USMS meet and results will be submitted to USMS records and Top Ten. Sanction 262-001.
Sunday, February 26 – Meet warm-up at 8:30am, Meet start 9:15am
Sunday's events are not USMS sanctioned and will not be submitted to USMS records. Tech suits are legal on Sunday!
Sunday’s events will be categorized and awarded as follows:
The Pentathlon: A 50 of each stroke plus a 200 IM.
The Sprint Pentathlon: A 25 of each stroke plus a 100 IM.
The Decathlon: Fastest combined time for all ten events.
Swimmers may enter as many events on Sunday as they wish and are not required to swim all events. Tech suits are legal. Awards will be given for the following: Fastest Pentathlon, Fastest Sprint and Decathlon.
Oh well. I still have my ballet career to work on. It's coming along rather nicely.
Spending a lot of time at barres, are we?
Maybe I should take up ballet.
Are there any dances where the female actually tosses the male spinning into the air, and gracefully catches me on the way back down?
I could see me being pretty good at being tossed and caught.
Like a trout in reverse, when you think about it.
Have you contacted the swimmers in your lists to see if their training was the same year over year? No injuries, illness, or other issues that could have caused them to slow down?
Even so, as you age I've heard eventually you get slower. Not sure when that starts, but perhaps it is between 55 and 60?
