Suiting up for practice

What about the backstokers pushing the 15 m mark under water - I bet they have to take one or 2 kicks less with the suit on. Also - I usually have a very even stroke count in short-course races - taking one stroke less per lap changes my turns / breathing and rythm. In practice it takes me about 20 kicks to go wall-to-wall underwater. With a B70 on, it is more like 18, as determined in the meet warmup. To be safe on the start, I usually take one fewer kicks when I wear the suit:9 instead of 10. I am not sure that it is necessary, though: with the 9 kicks it has always taken me 6 strokes to hit the first wall, and sometimes even 7 (in SCY). Those stroke counts means I've played it pretty safe, maybe too much so (5 strokes would mean I pushed it). I don't know that I completely buy everything the coach is saying, but it is probably worth throwing a good suit on in practice occasionally (particularly during taper) to settle these kind of issues. In backstroke, at least, it might prevent a DQ. The one thing that bothers me in all this is the buoyancy issue. That is basically the crux of the coache's argument that the most efficient technique may change when wearing the suit: that body position is significantly affected. FINA supposedly tests these suits and finds them to be non-buoyant, but most swimmers who wear them report that they feel more buoyant. Which is true? Until that question is answered, the rest is just hand-waving. I'd love to see some tests to show how much of a difference in "real" buoyancy (body position) these suits actually make, both passively and while swimming. Is the difference enough that the most efficient stroke changes significantly? I am not familiar with all the high tech testing toys that they can play with in the swimming world, but if they aren't looking at this sort of thing -- it seems a pretty important question to me -- what the heck ARE they doing? Maybe I'm overestimating the kinds of tools they have at their disposal.

What about the backstokers pushing the 15 m mark under water - I bet they have to take one or 2 kicks less with the suit on. Also - I usually have a very even stroke count in short-course races - taking one stroke less per lap changes my turns / breathing and rythm. In practice it takes me about 20 kicks to go wall-to-wall underwater. With a B70 on, it is more like 18, as determined in the meet warmup. To be safe on the start, I usually take one fewer kicks when I wear the suit:9 instead of 10. I am not sure that it is necessary, though: with the 9 kicks it has always taken me 6 strokes to hit the first wall, and sometimes even 7 (in SCY). Those stroke counts means I've played it pretty safe, maybe too much so (5 strokes would mean I pushed it). I don't know that I completely buy everything the coach is saying, but it is probably worth throwing a good suit on in practice occasionally (particularly during taper) to settle these kind of issues. In backstroke, at least, it might prevent a DQ. The one thing that bothers me in all this is the buoyancy issue. That is basically the crux of the coache's argument that the most efficient technique may change when wearing the suit: that body position is significantly affected. FINA supposedly tests these suits and finds them to be non-buoyant, but most swimmers who wear them report that they feel more buoyant. Which is true? Until that question is answered, the rest is just hand-waving. I'd love to see some tests to show how much of a difference in "real" buoyancy (body position) these suits actually make, both passively and while swimming. Is the difference enough that the most efficient stroke changes significantly? I am not familiar with all the high tech testing toys that they can play with in the swimming world, but if they aren't looking at this sort of thing -- it seems a pretty important question to me -- what the heck ARE they doing? Maybe I'm overestimating the kinds of tools they have at their disposal.