I'm a rookie in the pool, and am surprised that keeping one's weight down appears to be less important than I thought. After decades of running with the knowledge that every pound over my running weight added 20 secs to my p/m pace, am I ok being a little chunky? I do aspire to be competitive in my age class. Thanks, Steve
Added muscle weight can help you in the water but it can definitely slow you down on land. On the other hand, losing weight, including muscle, can make you run longer distances faster, but lost muscle weight will usually result in slower times in the water, especially in sprint events.
I have found over the years that there is a 15 pound difference between my ideal swimming weight and my ideal running weight. This usually correlated to a difference of only 2% in body fat.
I want to swim fast and look good in a suit. Currently, I look tolerable in a suit (haven't scared anyone out of the pool lately) and swim slowly. But I'm a work in progress. :D
The body floats but swimming is like climbing a horizontal ladder. Extra weight is a HUGE issue. You must pull harder due to the extra mass. Pulling harder can create more slip for a fixed hand/forearm size.
Carry a surfboard into the ocean, then paddle out. Huge weight difference, but you should be able to paddle yourself on that big heavy surfboard pretty fast.
Swimming is more about drag and thus surface area when it comes to buoyant materials. Weight matters, but not as much as being shaped like a cube vs a speed boat.
I am really just disagreeing with the use of HUGE :)
Carry a surfboard into the ocean, then paddle out. Huge weight difference, but you should be able to paddle yourself on that big heavy surfboard pretty fast.
Swimming is more about drag and thus surface area when it comes to buoyant materials. Weight matters, but not as much as being shaped like a cube vs a speed boat.
I am really just disagreeing with the use of HUGE :)
To add a little to this, the relevant equation is F=ma. Holding force (net force, or propulsion minus drag) constant, acceleration is inversely related to mass. Swimming is a series of accelerations and decelerations. If I remember the graphs from Maglischo, velocity versus time is wavy. During acceleration, the goal is to get up to a higher speed more quickly while propulsion is greater than drag, so in this phase greater mass will be a hindrance. But during deceleration, the goal is to hold on to speed while drag is greater than propulsion. In this case, you actually want to be heavier, because that makes the net drag force work harder to slow you down. I don't really want to get into the calculus enough to prove this (read: I'm not that good at calculus), but I'm pretty sure it's a wash overall.
How about weight groups in swimming?! Over 200 lbs for men & 160 for women ?! They do this in tri & running races !
If this goes through, I definitely want to see height groups as well. :D
How about weight groups in swimming?! Over 200 lbs for men & 160 for women ?! They do this in tri & running races !
Sounds good, but the weights you mention are actually the norm for world class swimmers. Jenny Thompson was 160. How about a division for adult men that weigh less than 140 and adult women that weigh less than 105? As Clydesdales are a little disadvantaged in running and tris, adults that weigh less than what I mention will be slightly disadvantaged in swimming.
I'm a rookie in the pool, and am surprised that keeping one's weight down appears to be less important than I thought. After decades of running with the knowledge that every pound over my running weight added 20 secs to my p/m pace, am I ok being a little chunky? I do aspire to be competitive in my age class. Thanks, Steve
I am more than chunky and I am pretty competitive in my age class. I am sure that some people are baffled that I can do in the pool with my non-swimming looking body. But, there are other big guys in Masters swimming who are pretty competitive and ranked pretty high in their age groups.
