After seeing a woman break 24 seconds and I think we can stop the discussion of "IF" the LZR suit is faster and start thinking "how much faster".
The previous line of suits (Fastskin and so on) were pretty similiar to a shaved swimmer. Sure - they do feel like they make you float, but overall the times seemed to move along "in line" with what I would expect to see in terms of improvements in the sport. If the previous suits would have been that much faster than shaving, you would have never seen people just using the legskins. By the way - for us Masters swimmers there was always the added benefit of keeping in all the "extra layers of skin".
So how much faster are the LZR suits ?
If I had to guess based on the results so far, I would say 0.25 to 0.30 per 50 and double that for the 100. I can see the Bernard going 48 low in the 100 and I can see Sullivan getting close or just breaking the 50 record. It makes sense that Libby Lenton would swim a 24.2 or so in the 50.
I think one of the top regular teams out there should do a test - you need a good amount of world class swimmers training together to be able to do a test. Here is the test I would propose:
8-10 swimmers
2 days of testing
4x50 on 10 minutes all out
Day 1 - swim 2 with a Fastskin2 followed by 2 with the LZR
Day 2 - swim 2 with the LZR followed by 2 with the Fastskin2
Get the averages of all 10 swimmers - maybe drop the high and low and there you go.
Why do the test ? I would HAVE to know. Swimming is a big part of your life and you just set a massive PR using this new technology - my very first question would be " How much was me and how much was the suit?"?
Olympic Results are in - now we can get a clear picture on the LZR time drops:
Hope the table comes through -- 10th place in World Ranking 100 Free over the last 18 years (swimnews has an amzing stat feature now -- taking 10th place to avoid the "freak factor" and 100 Free, because it's the most competitive event in swimming (relay). If the % is negative - the 10th place was actually slower than the prior year.
Don't remember if the first Faskin suits came up in 1999 or 2000 - but there is a spike at that time -- and then of course the last 2 years. I think step one of the Fastskin Pro material and step 2 the LZR.
Also interesting to note how small the often cited "Olympic Year drop" was in 1992, 1996 and 2004.
...
And before anybody says this is unique to the 100 Free - just name another event and we can check the times.
One of the issues of the "The Nationals Enquirer" had the following table:
Event Avg Finalist Time % Improvement from previous
M 100 Fr 1996 49.30 n/a
2000 48.95 0.73%
2004 48.80 0.30%
2008 47.77 2.11%
M 100 Bk 1996 55.18 n/a
2000 54.85 0.60%
2004 54.52 0.60%
2008 53.28 2.29%
W 200 Fr 1996 1:59.95 n/a
2000 1:58.92 0.86%
2004 1:58.69 0.07%
2008 1:56.35 1.97%
I haven't checked the math, I assume it is accurate.
The last years' improvement, what Erik would call "The LZR effect" (ie, ignoring all other potential factors) is given in bold. The fact of the impossibility of attributing the improvement -- which definitely seems significantly greater than previous years' -- to one specific factor such as the LZR (or another suit) has been beaten to death and I'm not going to talk about it here.
But I seem to recall that many -- possibly most -- of the backstrokers wore legskins while all the freestylers (and certainly the women!) wore body suits. Similarly, many/most of the male butterfliers and breastrokers wore legskins, while the male freestylers (and the women) all wore body suits.
By any reasonable physical mechanism that I can conceive, I would think the body suits would be more effective than the legskins (which, in turn, would be more effective than LZR jammers).
So why did the backstrokers have a similar/larger improvement as the freestylers? I remember Erik confidently predicting that Piersol would lose the backstroke unless he wore a bodysuit...what happened? The butterfly and breastroke events were pretty darn fast, too...I can't believe it took under 52.0 to make the finals of the 100 fly...I haven't done the math, but I wouldn't be surprised if the drop wasn't 2%. Why should it be, if many of the swimmers wore legskins?
A theory like "LZRs improve performance by 2%" needs to be correct in both large and small aspects. If the suit is really THAT much better than previous technical suits, then variations in design (bodysuit vs legskins vs jammer) would have a noticeable impact. On the other hand, if there is a 2% improvement across the board, irrespective of the type of suit that was worn, then that strengthens the argument that other factors are important too.
Now, the prevalence of legskins in the male non-free events was just my recollection. Maybe I am recalling incorrectly; I know there were some bodysuits too. I don't have the races recorded so I can't review them now.
Olympic Results are in - now we can get a clear picture on the LZR time drops:
Hope the table comes through -- 10th place in World Ranking 100 Free over the last 18 years (swimnews has an amzing stat feature now -- taking 10th place to avoid the "freak factor" and 100 Free, because it's the most competitive event in swimming (relay). If the % is negative - the 10th place was actually slower than the prior year.
Don't remember if the first Faskin suits came up in 1999 or 2000 - but there is a spike at that time -- and then of course the last 2 years. I think step one of the Fastskin Pro material and step 2 the LZR.
Also interesting to note how small the often cited "Olympic Year drop" was in 1992, 1996 and 2004.
...
And before anybody says this is unique to the 100 Free - just name another event and we can check the times.
One of the issues of the "The Nationals Enquirer" had the following table:
Event Avg Finalist Time % Improvement from previous
M 100 Fr 1996 49.30 n/a
2000 48.95 0.73%
2004 48.80 0.30%
2008 47.77 2.11%
M 100 Bk 1996 55.18 n/a
2000 54.85 0.60%
2004 54.52 0.60%
2008 53.28 2.29%
W 200 Fr 1996 1:59.95 n/a
2000 1:58.92 0.86%
2004 1:58.69 0.07%
2008 1:56.35 1.97%
I haven't checked the math, I assume it is accurate.
The last years' improvement, what Erik would call "The LZR effect" (ie, ignoring all other potential factors) is given in bold. The fact of the impossibility of attributing the improvement -- which definitely seems significantly greater than previous years' -- to one specific factor such as the LZR (or another suit) has been beaten to death and I'm not going to talk about it here.
But I seem to recall that many -- possibly most -- of the backstrokers wore legskins while all the freestylers (and certainly the women!) wore body suits. Similarly, many/most of the male butterfliers and breastrokers wore legskins, while the male freestylers (and the women) all wore body suits.
By any reasonable physical mechanism that I can conceive, I would think the body suits would be more effective than the legskins (which, in turn, would be more effective than LZR jammers).
So why did the backstrokers have a similar/larger improvement as the freestylers? I remember Erik confidently predicting that Piersol would lose the backstroke unless he wore a bodysuit...what happened? The butterfly and breastroke events were pretty darn fast, too...I can't believe it took under 52.0 to make the finals of the 100 fly...I haven't done the math, but I wouldn't be surprised if the drop wasn't 2%. Why should it be, if many of the swimmers wore legskins?
A theory like "LZRs improve performance by 2%" needs to be correct in both large and small aspects. If the suit is really THAT much better than previous technical suits, then variations in design (bodysuit vs legskins vs jammer) would have a noticeable impact. On the other hand, if there is a 2% improvement across the board, irrespective of the type of suit that was worn, then that strengthens the argument that other factors are important too.
Now, the prevalence of legskins in the male non-free events was just my recollection. Maybe I am recalling incorrectly; I know there were some bodysuits too. I don't have the races recorded so I can't review them now.
