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
Barb, Donna gave some great answers but I thought I'd weigh in, too.
#1 - What Donna said ... :joker: seriously though, Phelps doesn't have the same rotation as some sprinters in the 100. Partially because he isn't a sprinter, I believe Popov had a slower turn over as well. His stroke is probably phenomenal and EXTREMELY efficient.
#2 - The thing with shaving is you take off not only hair but also dead skin. I think the results are minimal, but mentally the help. You also will notice that you slide through the water a bit more.
#3- The more area the suit covers with out restricting motion the more muscle compression is going on. I think the suits give a definite advantage - I've heard 3% which truly isn't tons, and in a 50 will be minimal. But we measure swims in hundreths of seconds. Also, anything that makes you feel more confident when you stand up on the blocks is great by me.
#4 - Might have been a swim-off OR they might have been going for a NCAA cut (or nationals, etc)
#5 - There might have been scratches ... even just a couple could result in such uneven heats. Usually you fill-up the last/fastest heat first, then distribute the remaining swimmers. If there were 3 heats and 17 swimmers the last heat would have 8, and the rest of the swimmers would be split between the two remaining heats. All I can figure is that there were people that were supposed to be in heat 2 and scratched.
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
One more, probably simple, question that my daughter asked me: why are they called 'psych sheets'
The psych sheet is essentially a list of all the entries in an event with their entry or "seed" times. They are so the swimmers and others can see who has similiar times and where they sit going in. Who to beat and who to watch out for.
Poolrat, I know what it is but I was curious why it's called that. An odd name, don't you think?
I guess it's so you can get psyched up over who you need to beat.
Thanks, Donna, for your reply.
I could have watched that fellow swim all day. His stroke was beautiful and efficient - I've never seen anyone swim like that.
One more, probably simple, question that my daughter asked me: why are they called 'psych sheets'?
(She also asked me why the women didn't shave their heads, but I think I handled that one ok :)).
Answer to 1....in addition to what Donna and Heather said, I also refer to it as the Paul Evil Smith stroke....b/c when I saw Paul swim the 50 free at SCYNats in 2005 I was thinking the exact same thing....He looked almost like he was warming down...very effortless looking at least (although I doubt it was truelly effortless).
Answer to 4 ....similar to what Heather said....but even more generally, most conference meets allow time trial swims at the end of finals so that swimmers can try and make any kind of cut....usually an NCAA cut...but it doesn't have to be....I think you can sign up for these time trial swims just to get a faster time if I'm not mistaken....of course they will have swimoffs too if there is a tie for 8th place at finals (or a tie for 16th place if there is a consolation finals)....I don't really have anything more to add to the other questions that Heather and Donna haven't already covered. Good Questions though Barb!
Newmastersswimmer
p.s. Oh yaeh as far as why they are called psych sheets, well I have no idea but I would also like to hear the answer as well.
I haven't ever seen a psych sheet so I can't answer that question accurately unless the name gives it away.
And thanks to Fly Queen and Jim for adding more information to your questions; I love questions like this because I get more answers, too, especially since I am not "collegiate" (LOL).
Donna
Barb- the guy swimming so efficiently will 99% of the time win the race. I am reminded however of 1991 (I think) SC Nats in Santa Clara when I resolved to watch the 1000's purely to reinforce the point. Along came the fast heat, so no slouches here, I quickly identified the fellow with clearly the most efficient stroke, low spl, no splash while beside him a guy turning over at twice the rate, reminded me of Anders Holmerz (Swedish perennial bridesmaid). 'Watch this' I said to a couple of other spectators, 'that guy is going to die like a pig!'. Uh, no he didn't. At about 650, without either swimmer showing discomfort he pulled away from Mr. Smooth and won the race by several body lengths.
Thanks so much, all of you.
I've never swam competitively, so I have a lot of what are to many basic, basic questions.
I'm beginning to think that swimming at meets looks like something I'd like to try, but I need to speed up enough so that the janitor isn't asking me to turn the lights out when I finish the race. :)
