i'm one of the only guys on my team that foen't wear a drag suit. do drag suits make that big a difference?
if so is there a drag suit that has VERY LITTLE DRAG that i can wear to get use to at first? (eventually i'd buy one with more drag)
Rick,
I didn't say I thought adding resistance was a bad idea. I gave a couple of examples. Another one I like is vertical kicking with a dive brick or other weight. However, wearing a drag suit 100% of all workouts still doesn't make sense to me. Actually, I think that being shaved throughout a training season makes some sense (although way to big a pain to actually do). In college I always had my best/most productive workouts between conference championships and NCAA's when already shaved. I'm thankful I swam before someone thought of panty hose.
If you want to add resistance swim harder/faster and learn to be more efficient at higher speeds when the resistance is proportionally greater and proper technique more critical. Bottom line, adding artificial resistance to what you would normally do in a race is a tool to be used appropriately. I like an earlier poster's suggestion to take off the drag suit for a faster challenge sets. That makes much more sense to me. I also think there is a "style" component to wearing these suits which speaks more to swimming culture than to well thought out training protocol.
Rich
Rick,
I didn't say I thought adding resistance was a bad idea. I gave a couple of examples. Another one I like is vertical kicking with a dive brick or other weight. However, wearing a drag suit 100% of all workouts still doesn't make sense to me. Actually, I think that being shaved throughout a training season makes some sense (although way to big a pain to actually do). In college I always had my best/most productive workouts between conference championships and NCAA's when already shaved. I'm thankful I swam before someone thought of panty hose.
If you want to add resistance swim harder/faster and learn to be more efficient at higher speeds when the resistance is proportionally greater and proper technique more critical. Bottom line, adding artificial resistance to what you would normally do in a race is a tool to be used appropriately. I like an earlier poster's suggestion to take off the drag suit for a faster challenge sets. That makes much more sense to me. I also think there is a "style" component to wearing these suits which speaks more to swimming culture than to well thought out training protocol.
Rich
