How much does body weight effect swimming speed?

I am really sorry, and I am sure it's been mentioned already, but at 6'2 270 with a beer gut, swim performances are going to become the least of your concerns passed a certain age. A bit like someone driving a car about too loose a wheel asking if the car could be faster by dropping little of weight. I expect no "thanks for the feed back solar" here, and you can even be harsh on me if you want, since I went against what you were expecting as a feed back. Sorry. No doubt this discussion will bring forth the healthy people with their lifestyle suggestions for me. I've never argued that being fat as I am is healthy. In fact it was that thought that brought me back into the sport in the first place last year. I fully realize this isn't generally considered a healthy weight by any means, and I am taking small steps to change that. Too much change at one time = health plan failure. I've failed at diets and excercise regimens plenty of times in the past, including 3 comebacks to swimming where burnout was inevitable. So far I've gotten to regular swim workouts 3 times a week and there's no burnout this time around because I've started small. I also didn't drastically change diet to go with it. No argument I could be doing more for the weight, but at this point I know it will come down in time (and has a bunch so far) so that's not really why I was asking any of this. I am glad that you and others care about me enough to suggest I need to lose weight though ;) So thank you for that :) In that subject... I think I've found a formula for myself to actually do so, and do it long term... so little steps at a time. This topic has just been something that has always vexed me so I asked the question here, in this analytical community, to get some real thought and discussion going on it. And to reiterate... my question has never been "should *I* lose weight to swim faster?"... it's "HOW MUCH does body weight effect swimming speed?" I left it open to discussion as far as what "body weight" means and what "speed" means because I think any discussion regarding either is important to the question. Body weight could be skinny with high muscle mass, big beer gut on a small frame, or a large frame with evenly dispersed weight. Speed could mean absolute top 10 yard sprint speed, or it could mean distance mile speed. I think any of the above are good questions for the discussion. In my particular case, speed means 50 and 100 sprints, and body weight is a big mid section. There's been lots of good thoughts here. I'm certainly trying to do my part as the OP and follow up with results for discussion when I have them. If you need to though, imagine me at a slim 180lbs asking the same question wondering why some bigger guy beat me. Doing so might help you get past the natural instinct to help me lose weight and get you into the discussion. You've had a lot of opinion in the Gary Hall Sr technique-drag threads. Surely you have some thoughts or analysis on this topic? It's really not all that dissimilar a discussion, just naturally something that top notch atheletes in The Race Club never have to worry about so i doubt there's been much research done on heavy swimmers :D

Thanks. How's your 200? I'm: Weight 164 Height 6'1" Armspan 6'5" Inseam 3'0" (obtained by same method cyclist use for sizing a bike) I'm very slow at any distance over 100, and not as slow under. I support the idea that proportions might be more significant to swimming potential than weight, even in sprinting events as in your case. Back in college I was down as far as a 1:46 SCY but I kindof alternated with 100 fly as my 3rd event. After a poor showing in the junior year i vowed to myself that i'd never do the 200 again. I could probably easily tick off a 1:55 SCY or so if i had to swim it today. My stroke is long and efficient when I need it to be but sprints seem to be slower if I keep em long. Not sure how that helps or hurts your theory ? :)

my 2007 3km 45:15 my 2009 3km 36:40 Update. I've had an up and down winter/spring. after last years summer races I was not able to practice the way I wanted/needed because of a shoulder injury, and gained nearly 12lbs by the end of sept. By Dec I was up another 14lbs. by the time I could swim 4 times a week like I was the year before I was nearly 34lbs heavier than over the summer. shortly after than I stepped on a large piece of glass in the lake and was out of training for nearly 4 weeks. and now one year after only weighing 184lbs I am back to being over 220. and my times this summer suffered. my 3km swim was 40:21 all my pool races are nearly 1.5-2 seconds per 50 slower. so my goal for the fall is to take a slower start to swimming. mix in weights and biking this month, and only swim 3 times a week until the end of sept. if and only if my body feels 100% will I start to swim harder. I have 218 days until our nationals so no rush....

I was back in the water about 4 weeks before the race and was swimming about the same per week as i was before the accident. I think some of the time gain was definitely due to my lack of being able to train the same during the winter / spring as I did last year. but even now that I have been active for the past 2 months I still can't move through the water as fast as I could last summer. but I will be sure to post an update as I start to watch my weight again and get back into real training.

Update. I've had an up and down winter/spring. after last years summer races I was not able to practice the way I wanted/needed because of a shoulder injury, and gained nearly 12lbs by the end of sept. By Dec I was up another 14lbs. by the time I could swim 4 times a week like I was the year before I was nearly 34lbs heavier than over the summer. shortly after than I stepped on a large piece of glass in the lake and was out of training for nearly 4 weeks. and now one year after only weighing 184lbs I am back to being over 220. and my times this summer suffered. my 3km swim was 40:21 all my pool races are nearly 1.5-2 seconds per 50 slower. so my goal for the fall is to take a slower start to swimming. mix in weights and biking this month, and only swim 3 times a week until the end of sept. if and only if my body feels 100% will I start to swim harder. I have 218 days until our nationals so no rush.... So after you stepped on the glass... When you got back in the water were you essentially starting from scratch with a training program? How long were you able to train before those races? I'm only asking to try to gauge the amount of those swim differences that were from lack of training rather than purely weight gain. Still your 3k was way faster than 2007 so i can't imagine you were TOO out of shape to still go 40 min flat.

Update: This past weekend I was able to get a SCY 50 and 100 in. In case you don't recall, back in May was the last I did a SCY race. From back then, at 270lbs My times were 23.4 in the 50free and 52.2 in the 100free. These were swam on seperate days. After being a few ticks below 260lbs in august, the cheeseburgers won a little battle we had and I was about 262lbs for the meet this weekend. Newest results were 23.1 in the 50 free and 51.6 in the 100 free. The asterisks I would like to add here is that I was the last one off the blocks for the 50. Horrible reaction time on the start that you can clearly see in video (not uploaded yet). There's no doubt in my mind this would have been a high 22 sec swim if i had a good reaction. Not making excuses but I felt I should add this fact for weight/speed comparison sake. The 100free was swum about 5 minutes later. Legs were still a ton of bricks and I was still a little short winded. I ended up having some major oxy-debt breathing problems, needing to breath into the turns and consequently jamming two of them way too close. 51.6 wasn't bad, but I think with about 10 minutes longer rest I would have been able to pull out a 50.xx swim pretty easily. This was a very short meet since it was my old college team vs the alumni. Mostly 50 races and they were going back to back with little rest in between. Start/turn/rest problems aside the swims were still faster than they were back in may. It's still hard to say again that this is directly due to the weight, but I thought I'd post it here as it's at least part of the discussion i wanted to update. :) My next order of business is learning the track start. I can't keep losing time on reaction with a flat start. Interesting data. I do wonder if the weight made any difference, or if it was more of a pool/training/weird-ineffable type difference. .3 in the 50 and .6 in the 100 aren't huge time drops, though they are consistent. I don't know if you can base much on these two races alone unless it was the same pool you swam in last year; the same part of the training season; the same basic suit type; and you were similarly psyched/rested/in good health, etc. But even if all other variables were constant, it's just not such a dramatic change that I think you can pin it on 8 lb. weight drop (with the denominator being 262--8/262 = only a 3 percent body weight change--again, good, but not hugely significant in some sense.) As far as the track start goes, I have tried to learn this, and I am probably too much of an old dog to do so. What I have heard is that it doesn't really do all that much for reaction time, explosiveness off the blocks, etc. What it does do is give you some more stability, making it harder to false start (with the one false start and you're out approach, this is pretty important in the super elite ranks.)

Interesting data. I do wonder if the weight made any difference, or if it was more of a pool/training/weird-ineffable type difference. .3 in the 50 and .6 in the 100 aren't huge time drops, though they are consistent. I don't know if you can base much on these two races alone unless it was the same pool you swam in last year; the same part of the training season; the same basic suit type; and you were similarly psyched/rested/in good health, etc. But even if all other variables were constant, it's just not such a dramatic change that I think you can pin it on 8 lb. weight drop (with the denominator being 262--8/262 = only a 3 percent body weight change--again, good, but not hugely significant in some sense.) As far as the track start goes, I have tried to learn this, and I am probably too much of an old dog to do so. What I have heard is that it doesn't really do all that much for reaction time, explosiveness off the blocks, etc. What it does do is give you some more stability, making it harder to false start (with the one false start and you're out approach, this is pretty important in the super elite ranks.) I agree, to me it sure doesn't seem that this kind of weight loss can yield any results that can't be chalked up to other factors. I just wanted to add it on to the thread anyways as further data to the cause. I do think the 50 swim was faster than the 23.1 would imply, but it's hard to know exactly how much time i wasted on the block with the bad reaction. If I cant find a playback program that shows time on the video i can probably estimate how much i lost down to a tenth by framing through it. There's a lot of easy improvement in both swims just by fixing the mistakes. If I did them again today they'd be at least a few tenths faster without waiting for any further training gains or weight losses. Suit type hasn't changed. Having never believed in the body suits, i wore jammers then, and also this time. I don't have training "seasons"... not in a club/team and I train on my own schedule with my own workouts. Perhaps you're right and the track start won't yield any results for me. But I've always had problems getting the weight rolling forward on a flat start. I think alot of that is why i have reaction problems. We'll find out though. It certainly can't hurt to try it and make a time-to-15y comparison of the two.

Perhaps you're right and the track start won't yield any results for me. But I've always had problems getting the weight rolling forward on a flat start. I think alot of that is why i have reaction problems. We'll find out though. It certainly can't hurt to try it and make a time-to-15y comparison of the two. I wondered about learning the track start, but read somewhere (Maglischo maybe?) that although the "reaction" time on a track start appears quicker, you actually get more speed off a grab start, where you pull up for a split second before you dive. And the time to 15yds is the same. So I'm sticking with my old-school grab start, even though I agree that you are probably more stable with a track start.

I wondered about learning the track start, but read somewhere (Maglischo maybe?) that although the "reaction" time on a track start appears quicker, you actually get more speed off a grab start, where you pull up for a split second before you dive. And the time to 15yds is the same. So I'm sticking with my old-school grab start, even though I agree that you are probably more stable with a track start. I think stability is key for me. I have false start/balance problems when I try to start with my weight already rolled forward onto two feet. No doubt my dive distance will suffer a bit but I'm hoping the track start will keep me more consistant with stability from start to start which will in turn prevent slow reaction due to waiting for the weight transfer after the beep.

I wondered about learning the track start, but read somewhere (Maglischo maybe?) that although the "reaction" time on a track start appears quicker, you actually get more speed off a grab start, where you pull up for a split second before you dive. And the time to 15yds is the same. So I'm sticking with my old-school grab start, even though I agree that you are probably more stable with a track start. I've been hearing people arguing on the general merits the Track start vs. Flat start ad infinitum, from high lama coaches and swimmpers, to everyone else.... That makes me think, perhaps they both have merits. Personally, I can do both, but like the track start much more. With my personal body quirks and abilities (or lack thereof), it just seems to work better.