In cycling, it is a widely held view that losing weight yields faster times (yes, I read the steroid thread). How about in swimming?
I could imagine a theory where carrying a few extra ice cream sundaes in swimming might make you faster due to the increase in bouyancy. In fact, I had this very theory after my freshman year in college. Hey! Who doesn't like ice cream.
Former Member
The relationship to fat and swimming has been going on at least since the 1940s. My mother who was very athelic but also tended to be a little chubby as a young woman was always told she had the perfect body for a female swimmer. She wa about 5'7" tall and was a basketball star at her high school in Iowa. She never practiced swimming but was very good. After she had 4 children, I'm # 6 she got very heavy but could still do a mean free. After the entire 7 of us were born she switched to *** and was very good. My fahter wa over 6ft 3in and very skinny, like me. He swam before there was a butterfly. He swam a great free but couln't ever do back or ***.
The relationship to fat and swimming has been going on at least since the 1940s. My mother who was very athelic but also tended to be a little chubby as a young woman was always told she had the perfect body for a female swimmer. She wa about 5'7" tall and was a basketball star at her high school in Iowa. She never practiced swimming but was very good. After she had 4 children, I'm # 6 she got very heavy but could still do a mean free. After the entire 7 of us were born she switched to *** and was very good. My fahter wa over 6ft 3in and very skinny, like me. He swam before there was a butterfly. He swam a great free but couln't ever do back or ***.
Obvioulsy there's a direct correlation between weight and overall conditioning. One would think that being thin offers an advantage. ...however water is the great equalizer when it comes to fighting gravity. Athletes can be in great shape ...and "husky" at the same time.
I've seen some outstanding performances by people who look more akin to rugby players rather than lean mean swimming machines.
I started a swim season at 255lbs and raced in 15 marathon races. I won the first race by 2 hours I finished the season at 182 lbs I was skinny but was no faster no slower.
when I was 32 I weighed around 275. I could do 100 yard back in 58.0 but I was pretty fat.
by age 37 I had slimmed down to 235 after peaking around 290. I had around 14% body fat but I could barely break a minute even though my weekly yardage doubled from approx 15k a week to 30k a week. i'm 6'3".
My 200 did come down significantly though to around 2:08 from 2:15 or so and doing 200 back repeats in practice (say 10x200 on 3:00) I could barely do 2:40 to 2:45 for each one, now I can hold 2:25s for each one. Same for the 100. If I do 10x100 back on 1:30, I used to be able to do no faster than like a 1:15 in practice, now they are all 1:08 to 1:10. go figure. I still do these now at 39. I think my age is hurting my speed more than my weight loss helped it.
when I swam in college I was around 200 lbs, and was 53.3 100 yd backstroker (1986 was my fastest year). not sure what my body fat was then, but probably closer to 10%,.
swimming is like climbing a horizontal ladder with your arms. It simply becomes more difficult on the arms and shoulders to overcome inertia and pull your body forward when you are heavier. This problem is way more serious the the fractional increase in boyancy. You want to carry as little extra weight as possible.
Drag also goes up as your "cross section" or should I say mid section, increaes.
Loose the weight..... you will be faster.
