Speedo has released their "new and improved" suit. Below is a link to the story at swimming world, with quotes from various swimmers about "how it makes em feel"
www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../17020.asp
As much as I like body suits... I just can't see buying a "new and improved" style until they quit making the older models.
But I bet some 10 year old will have it for a b-c meet before long.
Katie Hoff in particular said they felt really fast "like a bullet."
It is too bad that as fast as she is to begin with, KH needs a suit to feel "like a bullet."
KPN told the blue muppet once that "life is too short to wear a slow suit," but nevertheless, I'd like to think if she or Hoff or anyone else can go xx:xx in whatever event, their time in a regular suit wouldn't be too much slower.
It is too bad that as fast as she is to begin with, KH needs a suit to feel "like a bullet."
Since Katie Hoff is under contract with Speedo I'm sure she's says what they tell her to say.
Speedo needs to act like every new suit they introduce is a quantum leap over what came before. That's just marketing.
The good thing about being an adult is the ability to spend as much as you want on your hobby. How else do you explain a 5'9" 275 pound man on an $8K racing bicycle? Makes a few hundred on a fancy Speedo seem like peanuts.
As much as I admire you purists out there, I was lamenting recently the failure of swimming technology to keep up with the advances in my decrepitude.
Why can't I beat my high school times more resoundlingly? What is wrong with suit manufacturers today? They seem to be designing with the idea that there are intrinsic limits on a peri-geriatric's ability to propulse himself through the water (or, in the case of my backstroke, repulse myself.)
I think where Speedo et al have left themselves considerable room for future improvement is addessing not just drag-reduction and muscle vibration dampening technology (the latter seems particularly suspect to this layman, but that's outside the purview here), but also the push-the-ethical-envelope of supplemental body-based power-generation systems.
For example, a recent Reuters story reported: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. Scientists in the United States and Canada said on Thursday they have developed a unique device that can be strapped on the knee that exploits the mechanics of human walking to generate a usable supply of electricity.
www.reuters.com/.../idUSN0741464420080207
Why can't Speedo make a suit that harnesses what is now the useless, maybe even retardative, "jiggling" of excess adiposity in swimmers like me, that is to say, our flapping and rippling waves of wool-covered fat stores? I don't think it would take too many rocket scientistis to develop a way of channeling this massive flappage activity into the production of electricity, then use this electricity to power small propellers arranged at strategic intervals along the body suit fabric?
Since it would be my own jiggling fat tissues that are the root of the electricity thusly generated, even fuddy duddies would have to acknowledge that the propellers were fueled under my own power.
Of course, I have not even begun to address the harnessing of natural gas production as further power source for what might someday be known as the Speedo FRTSkin Pro.
I just hope somebody is working on this. I don't have that long left to break 1:30 in the 200 SCY, and to be honest, I have all but given up in my quest for a sub-40 100.
I just read on the Speedo website that the basic material in the new suit is the same as the FS Pro.The difference is the "shaping panels" which is basically the difference between a FS I ans an FS II.
Arrrrg!
Too funny. I finally got my very first FSII highneck bodyskin (at a huge discount) via UPS today. I see I'm several steps behind.
I have issues when the models look questionable (at best) in this get-up.
The price is insane. Anyone know how many swims this suit lasts?
The woman at Kastaway said the FSPRO according to Speedo lasts "about 5 swims." Although I understand from masters you can wear it more than that. But still. . .
Just on pure principle alone, I would rather work extra hard and beat my competition (or lose!) in a $30 dolphin suit than pay $550.
Speedo.com sent me an email stating that Phelps said, "It feels like a spacesuit." I don't want to be an astronaut on the pool deck. The whole thing is sort of a turnoff. . .
I agree. Some of my fastest swims have been in an old FS I. I'm currently bidding on one on ebay. They're only about $450-500 cheaper.
The only ones who will swim fast like a bullet is a bullet. How much do they get paid to wear them and talk about how fast they swim in them.
Would they give these suits to a slow swimmer. Pay him if he improved his time by .5 of a second and wore this new fashion swim wear...
lol i never said the suit was just for kids. i said that i don't think it will take long before one is wearing the new, higher prices suits at a b-c level meet.
I like the idea of full body type suits but i question how much does this new suit really work? Is it really that much better? That's for each of us to decide.
