Masters swimming has decided on the Fastest Suit

This one woman had the LZR on Friday and by Sunday, she went to the B70. People were doing some blazing times with their B70s at Colonies Zones SCM Champs.

there are many B70's here LZRs worry me 550 COST hard to put on fragile, easy to tear, though i've seen several b70s tear usually in men wearing too small suits BUT I'M most concerned with LZR zipper failure during races, i've seen more than 10, where the whole zipper comes undone people need to test suits probably the best value to speed might be the FS PRO but those are fragile and can be hard to get over thighs and hips

My non-statistically representative sample seemed to indicate B70 as the suit of choice for record-breaking swims here at Colonies Zones. We got treated to a particularly spectacular 100 backstroke today, with Michael Ross in the full-length and Chris Stevenson in the knee length suit. Both guys obliterated Chris's old national (& I think world) record. Ross seemed to obliterate any record, though, when he jumped in ... though I haven't seen the Long Beach results yet. Having said that, while I saw a lot of very fast swims in the B70, the suit didn't seem to have as much widespread use as I had seen at the Ron Johnson meet a few weeks back in Tempe. I swam in the B70 again and was singularly very happy with it. I've never tried on a LZR, but I can easily get the B70 on in a few minutes without any major contortions.

I wore the Blueseventy this weekend in my freestyle and backstroke events and had some of my best times. Of course I've been swimming like crazy and working on technique. But I love the Blueseventy. I wore the full body suit now I'm thinking I need leggings for my butterfly events. My swims: the17thman.typepad.com/.../

Were they allowed to swim in the open-water version? Sure, why not? It is virtually the same suit. As Patrick noted, I wore a knee-length version of the suit. I actually have the Nero 10K (the OW version). The only difference between it and the Nero Comp is the zipper: the Comp version is more aerodynamic (and, I was told, more prone to failure though I've never seen it happen). The 10k was something like $40 cheaper at the time and I didn't feel like paying $40 for a zipper. I did a little experiment. Saturday night I led off a 400 medley relay wearing jammers and a regular latex cap. I went 57.73. A respectable time, about 0.3 seconds slower than I did last year (wearing a FSII, which I don't think is faster than jammers for me). Oh, I was shaved too (arms/legs/torso). I did this to get some approximate idea of the effect of the suits since I was slated to swim that event the next day in the morning against Mike Ross. I was a little more motivated for that race, to say the least, and planned to wear the B70 and a silicone cap. Since the leadoff swim was 7:30 at night (based on recent prelim/finals meets, I seem to swim about 0.5-1.0 sec slower at night), was after three events (200 fly, 50 back, 200 back) and was without any competition (or even much warmup), I decided ahead of time that I would need to drop more than 1.0 second from this time for me to consider the effect of the suit significant. I went 1.8 seconds faster (55.90), so from this VERY crude expt I would consider the "enhancement" on the order of 0.5-1.0 second for the 100 SCM back (an event where I spend half the time underwater). I freely admit this is just an educated guess, based on my experience and assessing how much faster I thought I would go when less tired and more motivated the next day: I expected to break 57 and instead I broke 56. In the spring I'll do some more expts (at a trials/finals meet), just thought I'd share. By the way, this is the fourth meet I've worn this suit, I suppose it might be approaching the end of its life though I don't really notice it. (Maybe it is a little easier to get on than before, I suppose.) One last thing: it is MUCH more comfortable wearing the B70 in an indoor meet in cold weather, compared to wearing it last summer at LCM nationals.

Were they allowed to swim in the open-water version? Where are people getting the old body suits for $25? (or were you just taking a guess?)

This one woman had the LZR on Friday and by Sunday, she went to the B70. People were doing some blazing times with their B70s at Colonies Zones SCM Champs. I suppose she was unhappy that the two gentlemen to her inside in inferior (and guessing both had old) suits smoked her in the 1500. ;) :banana: Not surprised to see the switch, tough - she swam a lot of events (and yardage) in that LZR. Hope she felt like she got her money's worth. One of our teammates has one (legs)... he wore it for 3 swims at LCM Nationals. Wore for one event at Rutgers and said the suit was already stretched out and switched to his FSII. after 4 swims... ouch!

Bill, I had the same thing happen to me in Chicago. Bought at LCM nats and has about 6-7 more swims in it than yours but the single vertical seam right about the junction with the 2 leg seams in back went. Bought at the Kastaway booth on Sunday.

I need to do more hard SDK in practice, I've done alot of SDK speed work but not as much speed endurance. this upcoming season I'm going to work on SDK conditioning for speed, speed endurance, breath control, and mental toughness for 75's, 100's 150's & 200's I think it helps to go deeper on SDK, the water pressure might make the swimmer more compact and the float in the suit might pull the swimmer up as they surface OK I broke down and blogged my MEET results on USMS at: www.usms.org/.../blog.php btw aren't you 44? whens your birthday? Congrats on your WR! Thanks for blogging about the meet; I look forward to seeing the whole thing. The New England meet is next week; I know both Mike Ross and Steve Hiltabiddle are swimming it, I'm sure there will be many other fast swims (I heard there are 800 entries). I turned 44 in October. Next year's SCM & LCM seasons I'll be in the 45-49 age group while at SCY nationals I'll be in the 40-44 group. I wish they would just go to one system or another, kind of weird to switch back and forth. I also wish they would seed at nationals by time only, regardless of age. (When I was a kid swimming in Europe it was a disadvantage to have an October b-day, now it is a slight advantage; go figure.) I believe that working on SDK speed endurance will even help your raw/top speed in the 50. Don't tell Fort but I might try to do a little more fin work to develop some strength/explosiveness (it won't ever be my main way of kicking though). I think some of the core exercises I've incorporated into dryland have been helpful for this too. I think you're right about SDK depth (though I don't know if it's b/c of the compression/buoyancy aspects you mention); I've found myself going deeper and deeper over time. Good luck with your training. Are you going to Clovis?

Ande, what size is your Nero? I'm thinking about buying one in a size 28. I'm about 6'2" and 185. Do you think that would be the correct size? The sizing guidelines on their website suggest I'm too tall for a 26.