LZR - It's Faster, but by how much ?

Former Member
Former Member
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?"?
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  • the other thing is if you're doing speed / strength training you don't need to rest much to hit your taper since you're already kind of rested when I'm doing a lot of aerobic longer training, for me, resting can be trickier I much prefer hit to my taper before my focus meet arrives then maintain my taper, rather than train harder closer to the meet then resting hoping to hit my taper right when the meet starts when I skip aerobic training to focus on speed and strength I just need a short taper like a week or 2, though some might consider the strength and speed work I'm doing as tapering. When I'm strong in the weight room and fast in practice I have confidence going into my meets Thanks ande! I do tend to think converters are not very generous on the conversion for us old folks. Also, forgot to mention another comparisons in SCM: 50 fly SCM, Dec. 2007: 31.3 (I think), fully tapered/Pro 50 fly, SCM, June 2008: 30.7, 1 week rest/B70 50 back SCM, Dec. 2007: 33.2, fully tapered/Pro 50 back SCM, June 2008: 31.7, 1 week rest/B70. Seems generally faster with the B70, although there are those niggly confounding factors! (The Pro I wore in Dec. had seen about 6 meets. I think the Pros wear out quickly.)
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  • the other thing is if you're doing speed / strength training you don't need to rest much to hit your taper since you're already kind of rested when I'm doing a lot of aerobic longer training, for me, resting can be trickier I much prefer hit to my taper before my focus meet arrives then maintain my taper, rather than train harder closer to the meet then resting hoping to hit my taper right when the meet starts when I skip aerobic training to focus on speed and strength I just need a short taper like a week or 2, though some might consider the strength and speed work I'm doing as tapering. When I'm strong in the weight room and fast in practice I have confidence going into my meets Thanks ande! I do tend to think converters are not very generous on the conversion for us old folks. Also, forgot to mention another comparisons in SCM: 50 fly SCM, Dec. 2007: 31.3 (I think), fully tapered/Pro 50 fly, SCM, June 2008: 30.7, 1 week rest/B70 50 back SCM, Dec. 2007: 33.2, fully tapered/Pro 50 back SCM, June 2008: 31.7, 1 week rest/B70. Seems generally faster with the B70, although there are those niggly confounding factors! (The Pro I wore in Dec. had seen about 6 meets. I think the Pros wear out quickly.)
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