Is Swimming Still An Athletic Activity Or Is It Now A Mechanized Sport?

Originally posted by meldyck This line of questioning always intrigues me because it seems pretty much to be limited to swimming. To put it into context I wonder how many bikers would like to go back to 40 pound 3-speed bikes? My racing mountain bike weighs half that. -- mel It is not unheard of for grand tour bike riders to have to add weights to their bike to make the minimum weight. Usually they just use heavier components, but bike companies are definitely at the current limit. Also, bicycles are required to be double diamond frames. The beam type frames from zipp, hooker, softride, and the trek y foil were outlawed years back. Much like it would be if swimming were to outlaw fastskin type suits.

This line of questioning always intrigues me because it seems pretty much to be limited to swimming. To put it into context I wonder how many bikers would like to go back to 40 pound 3-speed bikes? My racing mountain bike weighs half that. Or, how many elite Nordic skiers would like to give up graphite technology for bamboo poles and wooden skiis? My racing skiis are way faster than those and I wouldn't want to change back. Vaulting poles are light weight, running shoes are 'engineered', and the list goes on... But, closer to the subject, most of us know that the earliest swimmers didn't even have access to Speedo briefs. I wouldn't want to compete in a wool suit. So, sports technology changes & I don't see why anyone gets too worked up over it. I've heard the argument that expensive suits drive out the folks who are limited in funds. But, if you swim 200 days a year in a cheap recreation center that charges $3 a swim that's $600. By comparison, the $300 retail price tag is small. If you train hard to go to a big meet, fly there and use a hotel, the cost will probably be in excess of $500. There's no question in my mind that the new suits are faster. If I want to stay competitive I get a new suit. I've done tests on myself and other master's swimmers and the improvement amounts to about 3.5%! You just can't ignore that. -- mel

At the elite level...the suits have the ability to shave off valuable tenths of a second...even more. At the masters level the suits have the ability to condense years of accumulated cellulite and love handles into a neat little sausage wrap.

Yes, there is a current limit for bike weights. I wasn't questioning that. However, there have been significant changes in bike technology over the years that have lightened and streamlined bikes. My point was that, for the sake of pure athletic performance, no one is suggesting that we return to the 1960s for bike technology. -- mel

its the swimmer in the suit not the suit on the swimmer that produces fast times. these suits do make you go faster but there is no subsitute to good training.

I read or heard recently that with all the crazy innovative items in the golf world, the average score of golfers is not getting any lower. Makes me kind of chuckle when my pals go buy another set of multi-thousand $$ clubs, the latest ball, etc and still shoot the same score.

Now this is innovative: "If the runner adds an electrode to his forehead, in 15 more minutes the system assesses overall health by checking the condition of his liver, kidneys, and central nervous system." Who says the Russians are behind us in health care?

With the traditional “briefs”, the idea is to reduce the drag of the suit itself and this is done by minimizing the area of the body covered by the suit. Then, any additional drag would be attributed only to the body profile (sometimes referred to as the “Gym Characteristics”) of the individual swimmer. Lycra (and some other materials) were chosen because they are fairly strong and don’t get soggy and mushy in the water (like cotton which does produce noticeable drag and feels extremely uncomfortable as well). However, the intent of FastSkin II (and similar types of suits from other manufacturer’s) is not about reducing the drag of just the suit itself –they’re about reducing the drag of the overall body by adding something totally extraneous to the person’s normal gym characteristics. I bet that 99.9% of the drag is because the human anthropological form (not just the skin boundary itself) is not streamlined and not the appropriate shape for swimming. In addition, humans cannot breath underwater and above-the-water breathing must be coordinated with other body movements. On the other hand, a shark has highly streamlined form and they also have gills that allow them to breath continuously in the water. cstl-cla.semo.edu/.../shark1.jpg Ironically, I doubt that sharks would experience any significant loss in their extraordinary swimming ability if they had human skin texture instead of what nature provided them with. In addition, these new full and partial body suits interfere with the inherent cooling ability that swimming provides since they are a thermal insulator and there is a "stagnant boundary layer" (water trapped between the suit and your body) which doesn't allow the surrounding water to flow directly over your skin. In fact, some people have told me that they feel like they are actually sweating inside these suits and they can’t tolerate the normal pool temperature as they could with briefs. I might mention that research on the drag produced by various type of swim suits and their overall efficacy was done by commercial divers almost 50 years ago and the result that FastSkin II has less drag than human skin is not really news. Interestingly, in the 1960’s, I knew of a couple of commercial scuba divers in the Los Angeles Harbor area who worked underwater inspecting ships and bridge piers and they were quite aware that the rubber ("seal skin") suits provided some advantage in swimming (such as faster maneuvering and lower air consumption from their scuba tanks). You can see some of the old fashioned rubber diving/swimming suits in this link for the Sea Hunt TV series that aired in 1958 (starring the well known Lloyd Bridges). Http://DiverLink.Com/SeaHunt/ However, seal skin suits were never adopted to athletic swimming because they were considered to be extraneous aids and any mechanical advantage they gave did not demonstrate the real capability of each individual swimmer. Happy Swimming Dolphin 2 :D

Thanks because golf is not a sport; it's a psychiatric disorder.

Sometimes the dividing line between innovation and unfair advantage seems blurred: what's a "food supplement," for example, and what's a drug? Then there is the issue of a controversial running shoe that may or may not be banned for the Boston Marathon or any other USATF sanctioned race, depending on whom you quote. Consider also another running related technological tweak: the Oregon Project. This involves having elite athletes live in conditions designed to simulate high altitude, so as to improve performance. As the article states, Runners eat, sleep, watch TV, and play videogames at what their bodies think is high elevation. Meanwhile, they train at Portland's sea level. Then there's the laptop loaded with some $35,000 worth of Russian software. By analyzing heart rate patterns, the software aims to take the guesswork out of training. Plug electrodes into the auxiliary box, wire up the runner's chest, and four minutes later there's an onscreen message suggesting just how intensely to work out that day. If the runner adds an electrode to his forehead, in 15 more minutes the system assesses overall health by checking the condition of his liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. Johnson, for one, is a big believer in the software. "It knows when I'm ready to go," he says. Other high tech tools available to the Oregon team include a vibrating platform to increase leg power and a hyperbaric (high-pressure oxygen) chamber to repair muscle tears. The company's goal in all this is clear: use technology to counter the increasing domination of African runners, many of whom were born and train at altitude. Next to this, buying a fastskin suit to improve swimming performance is very low-budget. So are a lot of the techno toys we bring to our favorite sports, whether running, swimming, etc. Some of the innovations are things we now take for granted: stopwatches, high tech fabrics... and even heart rate monitors. By using these items on a large scale, people have raised standards--and increased participation--in sports across the board. Better shoes and clothes have made it possible for runners to continue in the sport or take it up later in life. (Of course, the "chicken/egg/chicken" question arises: did the innovations fuel participation or vice versa?) Better info about nutrition and training, some of it acquired through coaches, some perhaps through coaching/workout software, allows the less gifted (I count myself in this category) to make more progress simply by avoiding injuries and staying healthy for a longer time. And most of us, within reason, will try some of the new innovations, although in most cases, our pocketbooks won't stretch as far as, say, a sponsor's, so elite athletes will certainly have "stuff" most of us can't afford. But why not? As was mentioned, the bottom line isn't the equipment: it's the person... his or her ability, desire, and self-discipline. No casual runners are chosen for the Oregon Project. No simply fitness swimmers are sponsored to wear the latest fastskins. We're asking for more and getting it... but still, so much depends on the "we" who ask.