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?"?
Parents
Former Member
the only way they could really ascertain the value of wearing a suit would be through repeated testing. in order to have enough data to make a reasonable conclusion you would need a good 20-30 swimmers. have an fs-pro and lzr, both unmarked, so the swimmer does not know which is which. after an identical warmup each day, have the swimmers do either a 50 or 100 free for time. repeat 30 times, with 15 days being lzr days and 15 days fs-pro days. i think that that would be the minimum number of times that the test would have to be performed in order for the variance of the swims not to overpower the deviation between the results we are looking for- the average lzr time vs the average fs pro time. this method of testing would be systematic, random, and block out any mental benefits of owning "the new suit". I would be really surprised if the average 100 lzr time was any more than .2s faster than the fs-pro time if this study were to be conducted.
the only way they could really ascertain the value of wearing a suit would be through repeated testing. in order to have enough data to make a reasonable conclusion you would need a good 20-30 swimmers. have an fs-pro and lzr, both unmarked, so the swimmer does not know which is which. after an identical warmup each day, have the swimmers do either a 50 or 100 free for time. repeat 30 times, with 15 days being lzr days and 15 days fs-pro days. i think that that would be the minimum number of times that the test would have to be performed in order for the variance of the swims not to overpower the deviation between the results we are looking for- the average lzr time vs the average fs pro time. this method of testing would be systematic, random, and block out any mental benefits of owning "the new suit". I would be really surprised if the average 100 lzr time was any more than .2s faster than the fs-pro time if this study were to be conducted.
