I know that in numerous other threads the subject of personal preferences -as to water temperature- has been addressed.
What I'd like to -not so much talk about- but hear about is this:
Temperature:
Cold water is denser than warmer water.
Pro: A swimmer will float higher (maybe a nano-millimiter but still higher and we're talking about a sport where 0.01 of a second makes a difference).
Con: Being denser it offers more resistance/drag.
Question:
Does the Pro eliminate, compensate or overcompensate the Con?
Salt v/s Fresh:
Everyone floats higher in Saltwater (more buyoancy because of the salt content and thus -again- density).
I am one of those lucky swimmers who swims naturally high (in either).
Now I know -personally- that I swim faster in a saltwater pool (There's one in Alexandria, Egypt at the Auromobile Club where they use Seawater.) However this is just a freak since no meets -that I know of- are "pool" (i.e., CW-Closed Water) meets in Saltwater.
Therefore, same question
Does the Pro (more buyoancy) eliminate or compensate the Con?
I'd like to try swimming in the Dead Sea (where they say that a horseshoe could float. No. Wait a minute; that would be in cowboy-made coffee -as per Louis L'Amour!) What is it that floats in the Dead Sea but sinks in other seas?
Searched Google (not very intensey) but found no mention of actual items (apart from bodies) that could float only (or higher) there:
www.atlastours.net/.../deadsea.html
Another site www.srh.weather.gov/.../dead_max.htm
states:
from the URL:
The high salinity increases the density of the water which, in turn, makes objects in the water more buoyant. All one needs to do in the Dead Sea is recline and just float. In fact, it is hard to swim in the Dead Sea because of the buoyancy. Actually people just "hang out".
Cheers
Parents
Former Member
Slightly off topic ... There was an interesting study done a few years ago.
"You can swim just as fast in a pool of gloop. Scientists have filled a swimming pool with a syrupy mixture and proved it."
"What appealed was the bizarreness of the idea," says Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who led the experiment. It's a question that also fascinated his student Brian Gettelfinger, a competitive swimmer who narrowly missed out on a place at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens.
Cussler and Gettelfinger took more than 300 kilograms of guar gum, an edible thickening agent found in salad dressings, ice cream and shampoo, and dumped it into a 25-meter swimming pool, creating a gloopy liquid twice as thick as water. "It looked like snot," says Cussler.
The pair then asked 16 volunteers, a mix of both competitive and recreational swimmers, to swim in a regular pool and in the guar syrup. Whatever strokes they used, the swimmers' times differed by no more than 4%, with neither water nor syrup producing consistently faster times, the researchers report in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal.
Slightly off topic ... There was an interesting study done a few years ago.
"You can swim just as fast in a pool of gloop. Scientists have filled a swimming pool with a syrupy mixture and proved it."
"What appealed was the bizarreness of the idea," says Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who led the experiment. It's a question that also fascinated his student Brian Gettelfinger, a competitive swimmer who narrowly missed out on a place at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens.
Cussler and Gettelfinger took more than 300 kilograms of guar gum, an edible thickening agent found in salad dressings, ice cream and shampoo, and dumped it into a 25-meter swimming pool, creating a gloopy liquid twice as thick as water. "It looked like snot," says Cussler.
The pair then asked 16 volunteers, a mix of both competitive and recreational swimmers, to swim in a regular pool and in the guar syrup. Whatever strokes they used, the swimmers' times differed by no more than 4%, with neither water nor syrup producing consistently faster times, the researchers report in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal.
