Hi all - I have an odd post for you to ponder :)
Recently I've decided enough is enough and it's time to shift some unwanted poundage. Over the past few months through exercise and eating much better I've dropped about 15% of my original body weight, going from 207lbs to 175lbs. At the same time I've been swimming a bit and making an effort to keep on some muscle too.
I know it's a very very hard question to answer but am looking for people's estimates on what this sort of weight loss would do to your swimming time over longer distances if I was able to keep everything else static (stroke, flexibility, strengtht etc). The only difference if possible would be there would be less body weight, and hopefully a better shape for moving through the water.
I know that due to water being denser it's not as easy to say as it would be in relation to running etc, but say over a 5km open water swim, what would people guess the % improvement would be as a result of this?
Cheers
GC
USA Swimming has an interesting round up of some of the studies on this topic. www.usaswimming.org/.../ViewMiscArticle.aspx
I will excerpt on these, which may every so gingerly explain why skinny CremePuff's recent 24.99 in the 50 SCY freestyle may have depended more on her svelteness, and Jim Clemmon's recent No. 1 in the World times may have depended more on his B70...
4. Sprint performance may be affected more in females than in males.
Siders, W.A., H.C. Lukaski and W.W. Bolonchuk. (1993). Relationships among swimming performance, body composition and somatotype in competitive collegiate swimmers. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 33:166-171.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between body composition and sprint swimming performance. Seventy-four collegiate-level male and female sprinters were weighed underwater and tested on a single 100-y time trial of the swimmer’s main competitive stroke.
Results
Sprint performance was significantly related to height, weight in water, fat-free weight and body fatness in females.
The taller, heavier in water, the more fat-free tissue and the less body fat (within 25+5.3%), the faster they swam.
These trends were also present for the males (¿=14.1+2.9%), but the relationships were not significant.
Implications
Percent body fat can impact performance, but it doesn’t have to be extremely low for a swimmer to perform well.
The effects of body composition changes on sprint performance may be more pronounced in females than in males.
One final thought: a couple years ago, I lost a significant amount of weight (from 180 to 159; I am 6' 1") and it didn't seem to correlate with any improvements in my swimming (though I did seem to bonk from exercise induced hypglycemia more often at practice.)
My friend Glenn Battle, who has multiple Top 10 times and one No. 1 time sometime in yesteryear, told me that he has tried losing weight in the hopes of seeing improvements in his swimming times, and he has seen no effect, positive or negative.
Neither of us were obese or even borderline overweight to begin with, so perhaps this small sample of two doesn't add anything useful to the discussion.
My sense, however, is that there are probably some people who will be helped by losing weight, some that will be hurt, and many who will see no significant change. As the above study indicates, there may also be a gender effect whereby women conceivably benefit from weight losss more than men.
As many have already noted, land sports exert a toll of gravity upon their participants from which we swimmers are largely exculpated. It is, like golfing on the moon, a very forgiving sport in at least this one sense.
USA Swimming has an interesting round up of some of the studies on this topic. www.usaswimming.org/.../ViewMiscArticle.aspx
I will excerpt on these, which may every so gingerly explain why skinny CremePuff's recent 24.99 in the 50 SCY freestyle may have depended more on her svelteness, and Jim Clemmon's recent No. 1 in the World times may have depended more on his B70...
4. Sprint performance may be affected more in females than in males.
Siders, W.A., H.C. Lukaski and W.W. Bolonchuk. (1993). Relationships among swimming performance, body composition and somatotype in competitive collegiate swimmers. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 33:166-171.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between body composition and sprint swimming performance. Seventy-four collegiate-level male and female sprinters were weighed underwater and tested on a single 100-y time trial of the swimmer’s main competitive stroke.
Results
Sprint performance was significantly related to height, weight in water, fat-free weight and body fatness in females.
The taller, heavier in water, the more fat-free tissue and the less body fat (within 25+5.3%), the faster they swam.
These trends were also present for the males (¿=14.1+2.9%), but the relationships were not significant.
Implications
Percent body fat can impact performance, but it doesn’t have to be extremely low for a swimmer to perform well.
The effects of body composition changes on sprint performance may be more pronounced in females than in males.
One final thought: a couple years ago, I lost a significant amount of weight (from 180 to 159; I am 6' 1") and it didn't seem to correlate with any improvements in my swimming (though I did seem to bonk from exercise induced hypglycemia more often at practice.)
My friend Glenn Battle, who has multiple Top 10 times and one No. 1 time sometime in yesteryear, told me that he has tried losing weight in the hopes of seeing improvements in his swimming times, and he has seen no effect, positive or negative.
Neither of us were obese or even borderline overweight to begin with, so perhaps this small sample of two doesn't add anything useful to the discussion.
My sense, however, is that there are probably some people who will be helped by losing weight, some that will be hurt, and many who will see no significant change. As the above study indicates, there may also be a gender effect whereby women conceivably benefit from weight losss more than men.
As many have already noted, land sports exert a toll of gravity upon their participants from which we swimmers are largely exculpated. It is, like golfing on the moon, a very forgiving sport in at least this one sense.
