I'm working on a piece about obesity and the biological factors that can make sustaining significant wt loss so hard for so many people. The benefits of exercise, however, are not limited to the lean and abdominally chiseled! Even if swimming only helps you shed a couple pounds, or none at all, getting in shape can make a huge difference in life quality.
I have been playing around with a motivational strategy to encourage more people to compete regardless of their weight. To wit, my still-in-the-works concept, Jim's Weight-Weighted 50 SCY Free. This is likely to require substantial refinement (suggestions welcome!)
But as of now, my new metric is the soul of simplicity.
Just take your current season's best 50 SCY freestyle time and and divide this by your BMI, or body mass index. I am using the 50 SCY free because almost all of us can come up with this. You can also easily calculate your BMI by feeding your current height and weight in here (no cheating, please!): nhlbisupport.com/.../bminojs.htm
Clearly there are flaws in my metric. The first to jump out at me is that women's times, on average, tend to be a bit slower, especially on sprints, so we need to correct for this.
The current SCM world record (no world records for yards) for the 50 free is about 3 seconds faster for men than women. For purposes of my poll, women who agree to participate should subtract 3 seconds from their current season best 50!
I am, also arbitrarily, designating 1.0 as "par"--and your goal is to get your number as low as you can.
The Weight-Weighted Metric Exemplified
For example: take four men--
A) one with a BMI of 22, which places him or her squarely in the ranks of the lean
B) one with a BMI of 25, which puts him or her right on the cusp of an overweight categorization
C) one with a BMI of 30 (beginning of obesity )
D) one with a BMI of 33 (beginning of morbid obesity)
Now assume all four of these men can swim a 50 SCY freestyle in exactly 30 seconds.
Person A's "Jim's Weight-Weighted 50" would be 30/22 or 1.36
Person B earns a better 1.2
Person C achieves an even better 1.0
and Person D wins the day with a magnificent .91
If you recalculate these values for women, i.e., same BMIs but subtracting 3 seconds from their in season 50 SCY times, you get:
A: time of 27/ BMI of 22 = 1.23
B: 1.08
C: .9
D: .82
For what it's worth, I am a man, and my (admittedly lackluster) best 50 SCY free so far this year is 25.55.
I currently weigh 178 lb. and my height is 6' 1", which gives me a BMI is 23.5.
Thus my Jim's Jim's Weight-Weighted 50 is 25.55/23.5, or 1.087
There are two ways for me to get closer to par: swim faster, or gain weight.
Given the tremendous stigma on weight in our country, I don't think very many folks are likely to opt for the latter, or, for that matter, use my new metric as an incentive to eat more.
What I do think it could conceivably do is allow quite a few people now struggling with their weight to lay some legitimate claim to being--pound for pound--among the elite ranks in USMS swimming!
Give it a try!
That said, what about bigger body = bigger muscle mass, which i think is clearly the reason that women's times are slower (generally women have or can develop less muscle mass from the same amount of conditioning as compared with a man-unless they are taking male hormones, as with the east germans in the '80s). I read somewhere the typical differences in muscle mass between men and women, and the disparity is far larger for the upper body than lower body.
I, too, have heard that testosterone has a much greater effect at building muscle mass in the upper body than the lower body, and that the average discrepancy between men and women is much, much less in leg strength than arm and shoulder strength.
I wonder where core muscle figures into this. I would like to think that it is closer to leg strength than arm strength vis a vis its response to testosterone.
The combination of leg and core strength are the key to SDKs, and Leslie Livingston, who is not terribly tall (5' 6", give or take), and does a lot of kick and SDK training in practice and relatively less pulling compared to many swimmers, is an absolutely phenomenal sprinter. Her SDK-ing ability is remarkable.
She told me she just did a 26.8 50 fly in a little local meet. Lordy!
I am hoping that the reason she can beat me, a so-called man, so badly is that she is using muscles for which gender is neither a tremendous handicap (for women) or advantage (for men.)
Anyhow, that's what I plan to tell myself from here on in.
Okay, so far 39 people have replied to this poll, and it seems to be stuck on this number.
In the interests of pseudo-scientific validity, I would love to get a minimum of 100 poll results. Might I ask my swimming comrades to each recruit a couple of teammates of any size to do the calculations and post on the poll?
If each of the 39 who have done so already recruits two friends to contribute, we will have 117 responses, enough to see where the crest of the bell falls!
Sounds like Herbal Life or Amway....
Lastly, I am wholeheartedly in favor of weight classes in races. I feel like i'd fare well with that. :)
You could always become a triathlete. :bolt:
(In triathlon, weight divisions are a thing. You heavier men are called 'Clydesdales', for what it's worth.)
Okay, so far 39 people have replied to this poll, and it seems to be stuck on this number.
In the interests of pseudo-scientific validity, I would love to get a minimum of 100 poll results. Might I ask my swimming comrades to each recruit a couple of teammates of any size to do the calculations and post on the poll?
If each of the 39 who have done so already recruits two friends to contribute, we will have 117 responses, enough to see where the crest of the bell falls!
Talk about a rocket thru the pool! dang! My wife mentioned to me that she can already see my belly going down even though i've only lost about 5 lbs. This week was the first week I started to watch what I eat... ie not eat a king size snicker and 44 oz coke when i get to work first thnig... Instead I've been having a shake and no soda (except for one 16 oz I had 2 days ago over lunch). I think my goal of getting to 240 by March 3 will be attained. If I somehow decided to do nationals I'd try to get down to 220-215... where I haven't been since July 2009 and before I had knee cartliage replacement done.
You could always become a triathlete.
Thats about as likely as me having a BMI that isn't "overweight" lol. I don't run, and I bike ultra rarely. Its also my contention that you only need to be an average or novice swimmer to be a pretty outstanding triathlete and it doesn't really matter if you are an elite swimmer. The swimming leg just isn't long enough to make a difference.
Town I lived in obviously had a running club and they considered anyone over like 200 to be in the "big man" group. I always laughed at BMI as when I finished my college track career and started gaining weight and went from 175 to 190-195 I started to get in the "overweight" category.... yet I looked a lot healthier than when I was 175.
What are heavier women triathletes called in Australia? If there is no term yet, might I suggest Xena's?
images5.fanpop.com/.../Xena-Warrior-Princess-xena-warrior-princess-24708839-475-604.jpg
I don't know about Australia, but in the US I've seen the category for women listed as Athenas.
ETA: I've seen the Athena category have a weight as low as 145 pounds. :bitching:
ETA: I've seen the Athena category have a weight as low as 145 pounds. :bitching:
The official USA Triathlon weight cut-off for Athena is currently 165 pounds (recently increased from 150 pounds). There are plenty of non-USAT races, where race directors can make up whatever weight cut-offs they want.
Triathlon Australia doesn't have an official Athena weight cut-off AFAIK. In practice, I've seen between 70kg (154lb) and 80kg (176lb). 70kg or 75kg are most common.
