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?"?
If LZR and B70s are always faster, I just don't see the harm in having better information available to the public, FINA, USMS, USA-S, and the NCAA. The only harm I can see is the manufacturers because their claims may not be fully supported by the studies. My eyes tell me that more than just the suits have changed in swimming in the last few years. I just don't know how to divy up the time drops between the various contributing factors and I personally would like to know.
I know everyone sees the significant time drops, but you also see significant time drops for swimmers that just wore legskins which I can't believe have the same nearly benefit. Maybe Peirsol was just more fully tapered at the Olympics or maybe his start was better. Who knows? You also see swimmers that didn't drop their times significantly who wore the suits or who dropped significant time in one event, but not other events.
Someone will eventually do the study, but what will be the end result of the study? If the result show a 1% benefit, will times without the suits be adjusted for top 10 or NCAA cuts or other purposes? No, probably not.
I guess that just leads back to Paul's view - buy it, you will like it, everyone is doing it. Although it sounds like people standing behind Paul when he is on the blocks might disagree.
Maybe my belief that the suits are a placebo didn't allow me to have positive results when I tried the older version of these suits.
Tim
If LZR and B70s are always faster, I just don't see the harm in having better information available to the public, FINA, USMS, USA-S, and the NCAA. The only harm I can see is the manufacturers because their claims may not be fully supported by the studies. My eyes tell me that more than just the suits have changed in swimming in the last few years. I just don't know how to divy up the time drops between the various contributing factors and I personally would like to know.
I know everyone sees the significant time drops, but you also see significant time drops for swimmers that just wore legskins which I can't believe have the same nearly benefit. Maybe Peirsol was just more fully tapered at the Olympics or maybe his start was better. Who knows? You also see swimmers that didn't drop their times significantly who wore the suits or who dropped significant time in one event, but not other events.
Someone will eventually do the study, but what will be the end result of the study? If the result show a 1% benefit, will times without the suits be adjusted for top 10 or NCAA cuts or other purposes? No, probably not.
I guess that just leads back to Paul's view - buy it, you will like it, everyone is doing it. Although it sounds like people standing behind Paul when he is on the blocks might disagree.
Maybe my belief that the suits are a placebo didn't allow me to have positive results when I tried the older version of these suits.
Tim
