Just wanted to see how everybody shaves for meets or not?I heard different things on shaving:some shave legs and arms only, some -the entire body, some shave it with cream, some just get the body wet without cream, some shave DRY(CRAZY)!!!Supposedly the last helps get rid of some dead skin which gives you a much better feel for the water.Or, and another one I do not get:some shave even if they wear a body suit -what's up with that?
Well, I would like to hear about your experiences, how it feels to swim shaved and if it helped you to shave your time off too ...
Thanks.
Parents
Former Member
Edward The Head - I hear ya'. I've felt the same way.
But, shaving really does help. It's not just mental, though the mental aspect really gets some people amped.
Think of it this way: Put on a pair of longjohns and do some laps. How do you expect it will feel? If they were tight enough they wouldn't necessarily change your stroke any, but they certainly would slow you down.
So, comparatively, "Why do you believe the hair on your legs has no adverse impact?" However minor it may be.
You're used to swimming with hair. Similar to the whiskers on a cat, hair provides information about your speed an body position due to friction. If you're relying on this type of information to swim going to be difficult for you to swim without it, and your stroke may suffer because of it. You may need to train shaven before you learn to swim without hair.
Shaving isn't a magic bullet, but it is science: Resistance requires effort. Given the bounds of effort, lowering resistance will increase speed. How much speed? Well that depends on the amount of resistance lowered vs. the amount of energy. Not to mention that resistance increases expedientialy with speed in the water.
Anyway, I don't feel shaving is that important. You have to take your life circumstances into consideration too. Going faster isn't guaranteed no matter what you do in practice. If it were guaranteed then we wouldn't need to race, we'd just calculate out what we think we might do in a race and sit back on the sofa. ;)
Edward The Head - I hear ya'. I've felt the same way.
But, shaving really does help. It's not just mental, though the mental aspect really gets some people amped.
Think of it this way: Put on a pair of longjohns and do some laps. How do you expect it will feel? If they were tight enough they wouldn't necessarily change your stroke any, but they certainly would slow you down.
So, comparatively, "Why do you believe the hair on your legs has no adverse impact?" However minor it may be.
You're used to swimming with hair. Similar to the whiskers on a cat, hair provides information about your speed an body position due to friction. If you're relying on this type of information to swim going to be difficult for you to swim without it, and your stroke may suffer because of it. You may need to train shaven before you learn to swim without hair.
Shaving isn't a magic bullet, but it is science: Resistance requires effort. Given the bounds of effort, lowering resistance will increase speed. How much speed? Well that depends on the amount of resistance lowered vs. the amount of energy. Not to mention that resistance increases expedientialy with speed in the water.
Anyway, I don't feel shaving is that important. You have to take your life circumstances into consideration too. Going faster isn't guaranteed no matter what you do in practice. If it were guaranteed then we wouldn't need to race, we'd just calculate out what we think we might do in a race and sit back on the sofa. ;)
