No, this is not THAT discussion. Burn them or buy them, I am not writing to help further that discussion.
When I was first presented with the "tech" suits several years ago, I didn't have the budget to buy a full-body suit, so my first tech suit was made by cutting a Speedo Fastskin above the waist and installing a draw string. The only person to notice was Tracy Grilli, and she didn't razz me too much. I performed well in that suit in fly, back and free.
Later, when I tried a full body suit I was disappointed to find that my back and fly times were often not as good as my swims in leggings. At first, I chalked it up to my being a head case. In fact, I developed a term for these suits that didn't "perform" well. I said they had "bad mojo".
I tried tests throughout the years which seemed to confirm my belief. Then last year, I watched men's NCAA's intently to see how college swimmers "felt" about the suits. I was shocked to see that they were choosing suits in a way that confirmed my beliefs. Backstrokers wore leggings. Flyers wore leggings. Freestylers, wore full body suits. (If breaststrokers want my full report, let me know)
When I saw that, I threw out my "head case" theory and formulated a new one. I theorized that the leggings work better for back and fly either because they afford the wearer with greater mobility or they improve the swimmer's body position in the water in the way that a full body suit did not.
How could the leggings improve your body position? Well, my theory goes like this: if the suits give some sort of lift, either through buoyancy or some Bernoulli-like manner (yeah, I think that idea is unlikely), then the full body suits might not reduce drag nearly so much by lifting the whole body as the leggings do by lifting the legs alone. Or said another way, perhaps by rotating the legs up, around the center of mass, reduces drag more significantly than lifting the whole body upward.
Whatever half-cocked theory that I used as justification, I became pretty convinced that leggings have better mojo in backstroke and fly than the full body suits. In fact, my recent backstroke swims were done with the blueseventy leggings. Coincidence? Maybe. That is why I am interested in what other people have experienced.
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Former Member
At the NE meet earlier this year, you did go 49.8...was that with a full body suit, fully rested? If so, that's a pretty big drop in going to legskins...I would have a hard time believing that was just random variation.
Besides the buoyancy thing you mention, another explanation occurs to me: maybe the improvement is more about the compression/fatigue thing than buoyancy. Back and fly are very leg-dependent (more than free IMO), so the legskins are perfectly sufficient. The upper-body portion of the full suits do not effect the shoulders, triceps or most of the lats.
The Swimetrics measurements might miss this effect unless done properly.
The 49.8 was in the full-body, but there are a couple of factors that may have messed with that result. First, I was rested, but that was my first taper and shave. Over the last few years I have been doing two tapers at the end of season and have had significant performance improvements in the second one. Second, the NE meet was at least the 6th wearing of my blueseventy and although the suit was in good shape, I began to wonder if it was losing mojo (less water repellent, not as tight). Third, I swam a lot of races at that meet and on the first day of that meet, I swam a very hard 200 free, which may have taken something out of me on later swims.
So I don't consider the NE swim to be a fair comparison. The fall swim against you at Rutgers is a much fairer comparison.
Interesting point about the fatigue/compression thing.
At the NE meet earlier this year, you did go 49.8...was that with a full body suit, fully rested? If so, that's a pretty big drop in going to legskins...I would have a hard time believing that was just random variation.
Besides the buoyancy thing you mention, another explanation occurs to me: maybe the improvement is more about the compression/fatigue thing than buoyancy. Back and fly are very leg-dependent (more than free IMO), so the legskins are perfectly sufficient. The upper-body portion of the full suits do not effect the shoulders, triceps or most of the lats.
The Swimetrics measurements might miss this effect unless done properly.
The 49.8 was in the full-body, but there are a couple of factors that may have messed with that result. First, I was rested, but that was my first taper and shave. Over the last few years I have been doing two tapers at the end of season and have had significant performance improvements in the second one. Second, the NE meet was at least the 6th wearing of my blueseventy and although the suit was in good shape, I began to wonder if it was losing mojo (less water repellent, not as tight). Third, I swam a lot of races at that meet and on the first day of that meet, I swam a very hard 200 free, which may have taken something out of me on later swims.
So I don't consider the NE swim to be a fair comparison. The fall swim against you at Rutgers is a much fairer comparison.
Interesting point about the fatigue/compression thing.
