When I started, the most advanced suit was he nylon brief. Clearly the "shiny suits" were faster, but they covered your whole body. Jammers cover such a smaller area I have to wonder how much difference the top of the line ones make vs more affordable. Has anyone done testing or any objective measure? Shaving down makes about 1 second/100 difference for me and every .01 sec can be important, but is there even .01 sec difference between good jammers and top of the line?
If you have ever watched anyone underwater off a turn, you will see their skin ripple as they push off. What the full body suits did was to create a smooth surface on the body and essentially eliminate the skin ripple. That was worth 2 seconds a 100. But now, at least for the men, the jammers cover a very small portion of the body and as a result cut much less time...how much time? Who knows, maybe a tenth or two. Certainly a tenth or two could be the difference in a race, but so can a good vs bad start and a good vs a bad finish and not snapping your turns or getting a good dolphin kick off your walls etc.
And how much of a difference will there be between a top of the line jammer and a $20 jammer...if you use the $20 jammer once or twice, probably no difference.
Trying to test the difference that small is not worth it since there are so many variables you could never control for all of them (the variables that is).
My recommendation is to buy the cheaper suit and spend a little more on a good razor!
If you have ever watched anyone underwater off a turn, you will see their skin ripple as they push off. What the full body suits did was to create a smooth surface on the body and essentially eliminate the skin ripple. That was worth 2 seconds a 100. But now, at least for the men, the jammers cover a very small portion of the body and as a result cut much less time...how much time? Who knows, maybe a tenth or two. Certainly a tenth or two could be the difference in a race, but so can a good vs bad start and a good vs a bad finish and not snapping your turns or getting a good dolphin kick off your walls etc.
And how much of a difference will there be between a top of the line jammer and a $20 jammer...if you use the $20 jammer once or twice, probably no difference.
Trying to test the difference that small is not worth it since there are so many variables you could never control for all of them (the variables that is).
My recommendation is to buy the cheaper suit and spend a little more on a good razor!
