Lose weight, swim slower?

Don't know if it's true, but I'd be a willing participant in a study! :D

Here's an article about that: Is fatter faster?

I got faster after losing 40 pounds. But the other part of the equation was I was just learning. So did I get faster because I lost weight, or because I learned better technique. My opinion, a combination of both.

This is probably a bad idea...Amanda Beard didn't look to heavy in her photo shoot and I would love to be as fast as her.

Women tend to have slightly more buoyancy. But this is probably not the reason why she is faster. ...I will be quiet now.

By simple observation, we can see that, most of times, the fastest swimmers are not fat. In the article you mentioned above. I think there is a flaw in the study. The swimmers are actually lean swimmer, fit with muscle density higher than a real fatter swimmer. They simulate fat swimmers by adding artificial fat ("Fatness was enhanced by fitting latex pads under a spandex triathlon suit in the swimmers' adominal, hip, thigh, chest, back, and buttock areas. Microscopic balloons were added to the latex so that the pads had the same density as actual body fat"). When these atheletes swam, they still could use all their muscles. On a real person, the real fat would probably leave less room for muscles and therefore would have less muscle power to do the swim. I don't know if that could be true, just an idea.

Interesting theory Zirconium. One other point about that study which made me raise my eyebrows: "Thus, each additional pound of fat slowed 50-yard swim times by approximately .2 seconds." If I drop 10 pounds, my 50 free might drop 2 seconds?! Not likely. The fact that each "pound" impeded the test swimmers really made me question the validity of the test.

I read that article some time ago, but I did not feel like it was a definitive study. First, the study was done with a 50 and I would like to have some data on longer swims. Perhaps I am misguided in my thinking, but I wonder if form drag is less of a problem at slower velocities. Second, I am not convinced that the "fat" that they added to these swimmer's is comparable to the real fat that we take on. I, for one, concentrate a lot of my fat between my ears, where there is more room.

Having suffered two separate broken wrists in the last two years, my case could be used as a decent example. I was in fairly decent shape before each of the accidents (LCM Nat's '04 weight was 185), but the subsequent inactivity coupled with my 6-9 meal/day grazing-style eating habits and fattened me up pretty good (~215 and ~205 respectively) by the time the plaster was sawed off. After each accident, which occurred in fall 04 and summer 05, I was out of commission for about 6 weeks, then started doing legs in the weight room and kicking in the pool (waterproof cast). Then would work my butt off to get in good shape in time for SCY Nats. 13 Months after the last break, I am the fastest I have ever been, but my weight has yet to get lower than the 191-194 range. Its pretty heavy for a swimmer, but I am also the leanest I have been since a kid. While I agree with previous posts about having bettered technique over time, the last two years have produced nearly all my lifetime bests, and these have all been MASSIVE time drops, even for the 100s. This all leads me to believe that when it comes to weight/fat and speed, its not the fat or the weight - its the muscle. I weigh more, but have less fat (and muscle weighs more than fat). That extra muscle I put on got me through the pool faster. Make sure you wear a helmet!!

Jeff, how tall are you?