Ban the tech suits?

I'm not opposed to the companies raking in the $$$ on these new suits. However, I'm amused by the naïveté of the people who are willing to spend several hundred dollars to buy one of them. It's almost like the sub prime mortgage crisis -only we're dealing with a much smaller amount of money. Furthermore, I strongly suspect there is some kind of influence going on behind the scenes where the suit makers are urging publically funded colleges and school districts to buy these expensive suits. The last thing the failing public school system needs is more corporate influence from the sports/atheltic community. One thing for sure, this suit fad has turned out to be an excellent marketing tool for the suit makers and as P.T. Barnum once said "There's a sucker born every minute". Dolphin 2 I'm amused by the naïveté of people who are willing to spend ridiculous amounts of money to live in San Fransisco yet who prattle on about people choosing to spend disposable income on their hobby.

Dolphin- Why is someone naive who wants their performance to be the best it can be? If they want to spend their money on these suits why shouldn't they? I don't consider anyone who spends money on the sport that they love a sucker. As the song goes, "If it makes you happy..." It's kind of like saying why did you buy a iPOD when you can just listen to the radio? It's a choice thing. Thanks for the article Ande : ] :agree: Fort- I remember reading an article about 2 French breaststrokers who were elite. At a meet they dropped some huge amount of time in their 100 ***, I think. They were literally stunned at their time drops. This is what led some French coaches to approach FINA about a ban on this suit. So I don't think it necessarily helps the slower swimmers more. It seems to have made a huge difference to these French elite swimmers.

It's usually the fault of the French, or Canadians. That we can all agree on.

Fort- I remember reading an article about 2 French breaststrokers who were elite. At a meet they dropped some huge amount of time in their 100 ***, I think. They were literally stunned at their time drops. This is what led some French coaches to approach FINA about a ban on this suit. So I don't think it necessarily helps the slower swimmers more. It seems to have made a huge difference to these French elite swimmers. I was referring to masters swimmers. But, yes, the suits help; they're an equipment improvement. That's why they cost so much. And, as I've mentioned before, there is a school of thought that thinks the B70 helps breaststrokers the most.

Do the new suits help male swimmers more than females? Take a look at this. www.floswimming.org/.../6033-part-iii-predictive-modeling-of-swim-performances-at-the-us-olympic-trials Interesting, thanks for finding this. The table is slightly misleading b/c the confidence intervals for the predictions of the women's times tend to be larger than those of the men's times (and the actual time is labelled "faster" only if it is statistically significant...ie, if faster than the lower bound of the CI). So the difference between genders might not be as great as suggested. In reality all the men's times are faster than predicted and all but one of the women's times is faster (the exception being the 800 free). If you assume that the predicted times are completely accurate, then the tech suit enhancement was 1.56% for the men (std error 0.10%) and 1.02% for the women (std error 0.20%). The difference between the two is probably significant, depending on the test you choose (ie on what assumptions you are willing to make about the data). The numbers also give some idea of the impact of the suits on performance compared to the suits of 4 years ago, roughly 0.75 sec per minute of racing. This obviously applies to elite swimmers in LCM competition, but even with them there seems to be some suggestion of differences depending on even. On a relative basis: the distance frees seem least effected; backstroke appear more improved than breaststroke for both genders (contradicting Fort's statement above); etc. From what I can see, the predictions of the 2000 and 2004 trials were pretty much accurate, implying that the suits of those meets didn't have a significant impact (if present it was less than the uncertainty of the predictions). If the suits help men more than women, I wonder why? I would expect these suits -- any version, including previous years' (which did not have a measurable effect) -- would more significantly affect the hydrodynamics of women swimmers. So perhaps something else -- such as changing the body position -- is a more dominant factor.

If the suits help men more than women, I wonder why? I would expect these suits -- any version, including previous years' (which did not have a measurable effect) -- would more significantly affect the hydrodynamics of women swimmers. So perhaps something else -- such as changing the body position -- is a more dominant factor. Maybe it's something to do with the core stabilization? Perhaps this feature of the suit helps men more. Perhaps women's suits have always affected core stabilization while only the current crop of suits have helped men in this regard. One problem with this theory is full body suits on men are still not universal. Phelps, for example, only used the full body during freestyle races if I remember correctly.

I know, for me, that any suit that holds "the girls" in, nice and tight, is a definite help! :bliss:

Maybe it's something to do with the core stabilization? Perhaps this feature of the suit helps men more. Perhaps women's suits have always affected core stabilization while only the current crop of suits have helped men in this regard. I thought about that too...except the page states that the results from the 2000 and 2004 trials for both men and women were no better than predicted. If what you say is correct, I would have expected a larger prior improvement for women by the previous generation suits. But I'm just speculating, I haven't looked at the previous data closely enough to be very confident in my assertions.

Maybe it's the old placedo effect. You get all gigged up about the hot new suit and you swim faster. Kind of like how I jump higher when I get new basketball shoes.

As long as we are talking about "the girls," it should be noted the suits also keep "the gents" well in place. I will be banned momentarily, nice knowing you all.