I swam in a 3-day USS meet this past weekend, prelims and finals, and did a small little experiment to test the effectiveness of wearing a FS II kneeskin on my swimming.
First an exercise. The following are SCY swims I performed in the past year when fully rested. Can you pick out which were done WITHOUT a fastskin? Answers appear towards the end of message.
100 fly: 51.35, 51.43, 51.52, 51.96, 51.99
200 fly: 1:56.38, 1:56.90, 1:57.43
100 back: 51.41, 51.72, 51.77, 52.05, 52.26
200 back: 1:53.99, 1:54.02, 1:54.23, 1:54.33, 1:54.87
Some background. Last year I began training swimming more seriously (changed coaches, did less cross-training, did lots of quality sets, started weights again) and dropped quite a bit of time. I also purchased an FSII kneeskin suit and wore it at all my rested meets. So naturally the question occured to me: how much of my improvement was "real" and how much was a result of the suit? I also very much disliked losing the feel for the water when wearing the suit, as well as the hassle of putting it on before races.
There have been numerous studies but very few (I didn't find any) under true meet race conditions, comparing a swim with the suit against a swim without it but still fully rested and shaved and with something significant at stake. It is a hard thing to ask a swimmer to do, to play around after months of training; as it turns out, I didn't complete my intended experiment either.
I have been swimming at the Virginia Senior Championships the last three seasons (SCY07, LCM07, SCY08). The following were my prelim/final swims in the past two seasons, all with the FSII (I swam other events too but scratched some at night for more rest).
200 free SCY07: 1:45.52p, 1:45.70f (+0.18)
100 fly SCY07: 51.35p, 51.99f (+0.64)
100 fly LCM07: 59.12p, 59.47f (+0.35)
100 back SCY07: 51.72p, 51.77f (+0.05)
100 back LCM07: 1:01.35p, 1:01.77f (+0.42)
200 back SCY07: 1:53.99p, 1:54.02f (+0.03)
200 back LCM07: 2:16.21p, 2:16.07f (-.14)
P/F difference: avg +0.22, std error 0.10
I'm a morning person and the difference in prelims and finals has grown greater with age. As a 43-year-old, I have a harder time swimming fast at 8pm than at 10am.
I swam 5 events at the meet this past weekend; the full results are here
www.virginiaswimming.org/.../index.htm
Taking them in the order that I swam them:
-- Fri: the 200 free I swam in the morning with the FSII and scratched at night. The time (1:44.40) was a 1 second improvement over my best time last year.
-- Fri: the 100 fly I swam in the prelims with Aquablade jammers and went 51.43. At night I put on the FSII and went 51.96 (+0.53).
-- Sat: the 200 fly I swam in the prelims with Aquablade jammers and went 1:56.38, half a second faster than my best time last year.
-- Sat: the 100 back I swam in the prelims with jammers and went 52.05. At night I put on the FSII and went 52.26 (+0.21).
-- Sun: the 200 back I swam with jammers both morning -- 1:54.33 -- and night -- 1:54.87 (+0.54).
A few notes:
(1) On the second evening, I swam the fly leg of the 'A' medley relay, spliting 51.13. I did this wearing the jammers. Add about 0.5 sec for the relay start and you get a time pretty consistent with the others.
(2) The difference in the 100 back was actually greater than it appeared. In the morning swim I slipped badly on the push off the first wall. I offer no excuses -- I was the one who misjudged and jammed the turn -- but I estimate I lost roughly 0.5 sec. I say this because my splits were 25.7/26.3, and I usually take out the 100 back in about 25.2 when rested. At night I took it out in 25.3 but faded more.
(3) The difference in the 100 fly may be slightly less than it appeared. In the evening my foot cramped off the first wall (it lasted only a 25) and it may have slowed me down some. Comparing splits for P/F somewhat confirms this. Again, I am not a person who likes to offer excuses for swims, but I am just adding it in the context of this experiment.
(4) I didn't wear the FSII in the 200 fly on the second morning on the basis of the apparent lack of effect on the 100 fly on the previous day. I really need oxygen on the last 50 and have never liked that the FSII somewhat constricts my breathing (I only notice it at the end of the 200 fly race). It didn't take much to convince me not to wear it in the 200 fly.
(5) I didn't wear the FSII in the 200 back finals on the third evening, although I had intended to at the beginning. In retrospect, I wish I had, but by this point in the meet I was convinced it didn't help much, and I was tired of mucking around with my swims at a rested meet. (Heck, I was just plain tired!)
Here is the answer to the exercise posed at the beginning of the message. The bolded swims were sans fastskin:
100 fly: 51.35, 51.43, 51.52, 51.96, 51.99
200 fly: 1:56.38, 1:56.90, 1:57.43
100 back: 51.41, 51.72, 51.77, 52.05, 52.26
200 back: 1:53.99, 1:54.02, 1:54.23, 1:54.33, 1:54.87
I do not pretend that this was a definitive experiment that will settle this question for all. BUT I do think this kind of experiment -- done "in the field,'' as it were -- is much to be preferred over ones that are done "in the lab.'' (They are also preferred to experiments done by Speedo, who obviously have a vested interest in the outcome.)
My general conclusion is that the FSII is not significantly more effective than the Aquablade jammers FOR ME. If they made a difference of 0.5 - 1 second per hundred, even this limited experiment would have shown it.
I also think that the effects of technical suits is dependent on body type. I am 5'10'' and weigh 170lbs, somewhat muscular with a long torso and short legs. I am about 10 pounds heavier than college when I trained 5 hours a day and had little excess fat. Some of the mass I've gained since then is muscle but after spending 3 days with teenagers who have no fat I am under no illusions: I am not as skinny as I once was.
I also think that the situation is much different for females than males. They HAVE to wear a full body suit and I can readily believe that a poorly made suit will add significant time to their swims. Whether a technical suit helps them significantly more than a good "regular" race suit, I cannot say.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for your patience.
Thanks, Chris, for sharing the benefits of your experiment. And I echo the congratulations on your fantastic performances! I hope you are not accused of over-reliance on the creme and the clear!
A few observations:
1) my own experience with the body suit is closer to Jim M's--startlingly improved times. I suspect I am a heavy placebo responder, or perhaps more accurately, a heavy nocebo responder--things like voodoo death were invented for guys like me. In any event, when I first tried a friend's Aquablade, we did not think of it as a superhero outfit but rather a "girlie suit." It is possible that the thrill of enforced transgenderization motivated me in some odd way I can only begin to understand. But my instincts tell me that placebo response was not the main reason for improvement.
2) I have always suspected that hirsute fellows with abdominal fat stores that tend to jiggle--that is to say, people like me--benefit much more from these suits than the Phelpsian ubermenchen whose bodies are already exceptionally tight. You can throw a baseball a lot further than a same-size-and-weight spheroid of flubber coated with hair.
3) In terms of the placebo response itself, the best evidence for this seems to be in pain perception--brain scans have actually shown the same pathways lighting up for morphine and placebo pain pills. If there is a placebo effect from these suits, perhaps it is here where it operates. Swimming good times requires pain, and if you think the suit is going to spare you some of this, well, maybe it will.
4) finally, I don't know if you tried this in your experiment, but does either your stroke count or need for air change when you are wearing the technical suit vs. a regular suit? I first wore a body suit during the 100 fly and realized a) it took 1-2 less strokes per length in a 25 yard pool, b) I just didn't seem to get as winded, and c) my time dropped by 2 seconds.
PS about distance swimmers gravitating to these suits if they worked: another possible theory, at least with FS1s, is that the advantage of buoyancy gained when the suit is completely dry gets lost the longer you are in the water. For this reason, some of the suits might confer more advantage on shorter distance races.
PS 2 Even if the suit's main benefit is someday proven to be a placebo effect, I think that for me, NOT wearing the suit would -- at this point -- exert a powerful nocebo response on me, whereby I would expect to swim much slower and more painfully. Yes. I admit it. My name is Jim Thornton, and I am a Technical Suit Addict.
Great swims Chris. Curious, when you are tapering when do you stop with the weights or do you? I pretty much pound the weights up to two weeks out of big meet then last week lighten the weights with less reps.
I like the highneck for the 200 fly. I almost feel it gives my arms a rubberband effect. Never really noticed if it makes me breath different. Think 200 fly just about everyone is gasping for air that last 50. I got one more month of training until the Ohio Masters State meet at Ohio State. The times you posted in the fly will give me something to shoot for in our age group.
Again, great swims!
Greg
Greg,
I stop lifting pretty early -- earlier than most -- about 2.5 to 3 weeks out. And I do maintenance lifting for about 2 weeks prior to that.
I think I am in the minority on that. BUT...I find it gives me good drops in the fly and free, if not the backstroke. At David Gregg, which was 5 weeks prior to this meet, I was 53.25 and 2:01.5 in the 100/200 fly. I had already begun maintenance lifting by that point.
There is no question I lose some strength during taper, but even maintenance lifting takes a lot out of me, I've found. I discovered this by mistake a long time ago, when during an extended taper period (with several meets in a row) I kept getting (much) faster even while not lifting over what came to be about 8 weeks.
So I reason now that it isn't strength per se (ie, the ability to lift heavy objects) that is important but power in the water. So I view taper time as the time to translate that strength into speed. I increase my use of paddles during taper to keep up some swimming-specific strength.
I hope that helps. Good luck with your meet.
4) finally, I don't know if you tried this in your experiment, but does either your stroke count or need for air change when you are wearing the technical suit vs. a regular suit? I first wore a body suit during the 100 fly and realized a) it took 1-2 less strokes per length in a 25 yard pool, b) I just didn't seem to get as winded, and c) my time dropped by 2 seconds.
PS about distance swimmers gravitating to these suits if they worked: another possible theory, at least with FS1s, is that the advantage of buoyancy gained when the suit is completely dry gets lost the longer you are in the water. For this reason, some of the suits might confer more advantage on shorter distance races.
PS 2 Even if the suit's main benefit is someday proven to be a placebo effect, I think that for me, NOT wearing the suit would -- at this point -- exert a powerful nocebo response on me, whereby I would expect to swim much slower and more painfully. Yes. I admit it. My name is Jim Thornton, and I am a Technical Suit Addict.
I'm always aware of my stroke count and need for air, and for me these things are not affected by wearing the suit. Shaving and tapering alone seem to do the trick: jumping in warmups of the meet after I've shaved, I feel like superman: a little flick of my wrist and I'm effortlessly moving forward, and I ride higher on the water. The suit interfered with those feelings for me, hence the test.
I have always wondered about the potential effects in short vs long races. My thought was that the suits would work -- to the extent that they do so in a physical rather than mental sense -- by better hydrodynamics rather than increased buoyancy. And that this effect would be especially important off the dive and walls.
It would stand to reason that the effects would be greater at higher speeds for a given body type, so that they may be proportionally more important in shorter races. Even a 0.1 sec difference -- too small to detect in my experiment -- can be pretty important in a 50, after all.
interesting
it seemed to help more in back and less in fly
I'm curious to see how you'd do with a leg skin
ande
I think that's an artifact, but perhaps. The effect, to the extent it exists, appears to be small. I do notice that the effect on my "feel" is much less in backstroke than fly or free.
Maybe I'll try legskins some day but they may be too much trouble. I have short legs and anticipate problems with leg skins: the ones short enough for me are much too tight.
I notice in a Youtube video that Piersol wore jammers in his gold medal 200 back and figure what the heck, it didn't seem to slow him down much.
2001 LCM Nats I had my first meet with my FS I kneeskin.I had practiced with it and felt like I could go forever on the pullout.I was really psyched up and then in the 50 BR I was .5 sec slower than my goal time.In the 100 BR I was off almost a full sec.I went with a brief for the 200 BR and went .5 sec faster than my goal time.I haven't worn it again in a BR race,but I do wear it for fly,free and IM and have gone faster than goal times sometimes then.
Great swims Chris. Curious, when you are tapering when do you stop with the weights or do you? I pretty much pound the weights up to two weeks out of big meet then last week lighten the weights with less reps.
I like the highneck for the 200 fly. I almost feel it gives my arms a rubberband effect. Never really noticed if it makes me breath different. Think 200 fly just about everyone is gasping for air that last 50. I got one more month of training until the Ohio Masters State meet at Ohio State. The times you posted in the fly will give me something to shoot for in our age group.
Again, great swims!
Greg
Interesting that you say that "without solid evidence" the bodyskins are preferable to the "record breakers" (I'm not sure what those are). I would say that the burden of proof should be upon those who introduce these new, expensive suits...but that's just me.
Female recordbreakers are fastskins with no legs. I definitely think I have dropped time switching from recordbreakers or practice suits to bodysuits. I remember the first time I hopped in the water with a bodyskin (50 back Nats 2006), I couldn't believe how awesome it felt. So I almost always wear a bodyskin now. It doesn't seem to interfere with my feel for the water at all. But I wonder if that's as significant in sprints? Sprints are much more "load and shoot" than your 200s.
(Also, maybe it makes more of a difference for females. We tend to have more, ah, jiggly parts. So the compression would help.)
The "without solid evidence" comment means that my thinking that bodyskins are somewhat faster is just based on anecdotal evidence and how I view my own personal experience. Could be I just got faster as a result of more meet experience ... Could be the pool makes more of a difference than fastskins ... Ghastly bare walls could effect your time ... Or a bulkhead ... Or a botched taper or not enough taper ...
I should do an experiment in practice I guess and time trial the suits. I'm usually way too lazy or pressed for time to take the time to get into a fastskin at practice though.
Female recordbreakers are fastskins with no legs. I definitely think I have dropped time switching from recordbreakers or practice suits to bodysuits. I remember the first time I hopped in the water with a bodyskin (50 back Nats 2006), I couldn't believe how awesome it felt. So I almost always wear a bodyskin now. It doesn't seem to interfere with my feel for the water at all. But I wonder if that's as significant in sprints? Sprints are much more "load and shoot" than your 200s.
(Also, maybe it makes more of a difference for females. We tend to have more, ah, jiggly parts. So the compression would help.)
I definitely think there is a gender-based difference. And wearing a jammer (vs briefs) doesn't affect my feel, so I can see how it would help you and not hurt. Except maybe in breaststroke? (Don't know, don't care...sorry Allen!:bolt:). Probably legskins would not affect my feel either, not sure how much sensory feedback I get from my calves/shins!
I was watching some of the females in warmups during their pushoffs. (Watching, not ogling, honest.) I notice that even with the skinny women, there is noticeable "jiggle" around their hips during the pushoff. Lots of gee-forces and resistence at that point, I suppose. Pretty much all the guys were wearing jammers so I couldn't compare, but guys also have narrower hips. So in addition to compressing the jiggly parts, um, up top I can see that having at least a knee-skin can help women more than men.
I'm trying to be sensitive to gender-based differences here! Keep in mind that this observation was NOT with overweight women.
One other thing that I forgot to mention in my original description: this was NOT a new FSII by any means. I had worn it in 4 previous meets. I inspected it prior to the meet and it looked in good shape: the fabric still was elastic and the seams were intact. But I know that some people replace their suit almost every meet or two, and I haven't done that.
So really my comparison was between a slightly used pair of Aquablade jammer (3rd meet...and the inner liner is already falling apart.:censor: At least it was only $25) and a more-used FSII kneeskin (5th meet).
Good luck with your training/taper; see you at Zones.
