I took my daughter to a collegiate conference meet yesterday. I saw some things that I didn't quite understand, and my 6 year old asked me some questions I couldn't answer. I can guess at some of this, but would appreciate it if you would weigh in. Would you please help us out?
(1) I saw an incredible swimmer in the men's 100 free. His stroke count was so much lower than the other swimmers that he almost looked like he was swimming in slow motion and his kicking wasn't as frenetic as the others, yet he easily won by a body length. Was there something special to his technique? Does it have a name? He was poetry in motion.
(2) About shaving: I stayed off the recent shaving thread as it seemed to be a guys' discussion, but I am curious - does shaving off body hair (and in the case of some of these college swimmers, head hair) appreciatively cut down drag and increase speed or is it more of a psychological "feel for the water" type feeling? Or something in between or something else altogether?
(3) About suit choice: All suit types were represented: for women, tanks and fastskins: for men, tiny speedos, jammers and bottom half fastskins. If not at the elite (and I mean really elite) level, does suit choice really make a difference or is it again psychological? At this meet anyway, the majority of fastest times were swam by women in tanks and men in the tiny speedos.
(4) At the end of the morning prelims, we saw a time trial for two female swimmers in the 100 free. Was this because they had a dead tie in the prelims?
(5) In one of the races, it might have been a men's 200 ***, there were 3 heats. The first had 8 swimmers, the third had 8 swimmers, but the middle heat only had 3...any ideas?
Thanks much. It was great to be able to tell my daughter that I didn't know, but I knew who I could ask.
Barb
Parents
Former Member
Hi Barb,
Well, I'll take a crack at some of your questions.
1. His "easy looking stroke" is good technique; he is not spinning and therefore is catching and grabing lots of water and hanging onto it until he needs to recover his stroke. Many great technique swimmers also do not kick furiously. Their body is in great alignment, they have body balance, and they slice through the water more like a submarine than a barge. He is also obviously doing terrific hip rotation; all of these things make a stroke look easy and simple when in fact an awful lot is truly going on. There can be many names for this type of stroke but to me, I call it stroke perfection.
2. I believe it has been proven that shaving down reduces resistance so the water glides over the body more easily. I have never bothered to do this because I need more than hundredths of a second or tenths of a second; I need many seconds and I don't have enough hair on my body to become seconds faster with shaving down.
3. The manufacturers swear that some suits are less resistant than others, but again, as in number 2, I don't know how much of a reduction in swim time can be attributed to suit material/style.
4. Not sure but could have been they were both vying for the last lane to be available in the finals if they had the exact same time, thus a swim off of sorts.
5. In many swim meets, swimmers are seeded by "time" beforehand; that means swimmers are grouped together based on their times so maybe the heat that had only 3 swimmers in it, those original times may have been so much faster than the others that it was determined to swim them together and not have slower people with them.
Donna
Hi Barb,
Well, I'll take a crack at some of your questions.
1. His "easy looking stroke" is good technique; he is not spinning and therefore is catching and grabing lots of water and hanging onto it until he needs to recover his stroke. Many great technique swimmers also do not kick furiously. Their body is in great alignment, they have body balance, and they slice through the water more like a submarine than a barge. He is also obviously doing terrific hip rotation; all of these things make a stroke look easy and simple when in fact an awful lot is truly going on. There can be many names for this type of stroke but to me, I call it stroke perfection.
2. I believe it has been proven that shaving down reduces resistance so the water glides over the body more easily. I have never bothered to do this because I need more than hundredths of a second or tenths of a second; I need many seconds and I don't have enough hair on my body to become seconds faster with shaving down.
3. The manufacturers swear that some suits are less resistant than others, but again, as in number 2, I don't know how much of a reduction in swim time can be attributed to suit material/style.
4. Not sure but could have been they were both vying for the last lane to be available in the finals if they had the exact same time, thus a swim off of sorts.
5. In many swim meets, swimmers are seeded by "time" beforehand; that means swimmers are grouped together based on their times so maybe the heat that had only 3 swimmers in it, those original times may have been so much faster than the others that it was determined to swim them together and not have slower people with them.
Donna
