How much does body weight effect swimming speed?

No, no! Keep posting your times. In a way, having a range of times at your current weight is very helpful because it will show the range of fluctuation that's due to variables other than weight. In other words, if your 50 time remains around 23.3, give or take a few tenths here and there, while your weight remains at 258, give or take a few lbs. here and there, then it will make for a much more convincing case in the future, when you are swimming 20 lbs. lighter and (we all hope!) a half second faster. A couple additional notes: Personally, I would recommend not getting too hung up on your weight. .. Two things that might help in the weight lost department... Didn't want to quote it all so i kindof abbreviated your post. For the times thats exactly what I was thinking, it kindof averages things out at a given weight even though theres not much change the last few results. Definately not mentally hung up on weight loss or anything like that. Alcohol... not a daily or even weekly thing lately. Just social. And I sleep great, no snoring, and always wake up feeling fresh and well rested. My bad habit is food. I eat junk food, and a lot of it :angel: Slowly but surely its dropping off though. What isn't reflected by lack of updates was a weight gain back to the upper 260's around nov-dec... :) I'll email you soon though. While I don't feel the apnea applies to me, i'd like to read the metabolism article. Thats always been intriguing to me. Thanks for the thoughts and input. :woot:

Can you present your times in table form so we can see the effect of weight on speed in different events? It seems to me that your weight has been fairly steady of late. A couple meets ago, you described yourself as being under 260. The previous meet ~ 256, then this current meet ~258. Unless I am reading this wrong, your weight hasn't changed appreciably for these last three meets, thus any change in your speed is probably a training effect, or different pool conditions, or perhaps even a reflection of your overall health at the time of the swim (hangover or not, cold virus or not, stress levels, etc.) Basically, until we see significant changes in weight, either up or down, I am not sure how this answers the question in the thread's title. And even if your times did go down significantly if, say, you got down to 220 lb., I am not sure you are proving anything but a correlation. Perhaps times faster at 220 then 260 have nothing directly to do with weight per se, but rather the fact that you have worked out so much that you got into great swimming shape, an accidental and unrelated consequence of which is shedding pounds. No you're not reading it wrong. My weight is fluctuating in the same general area lately. I know the last few swims haven't dont much to plot significantly lower weight vs speed except to form more of an average at the current weight. I'm trying to keep as many things as I can besides weight at a constant level (training, fitness level, etc). There's obviously some things I can't totally control like meet location, unintended training effect, race mistakes, and relative health at the time of each swim. I wish it was a quicker process to get more classifiable results, but me and diets don't work together very well so the plotting of weight reduction vs speed won't happen overnight either. I'll try to get it in table form though, thats a good idea for plotting purposes. If you'd rather I can quit bumping the topic until I get a better, more significant, sampling of swims?

I've been debating for nearly a month to even add on to this thread or let it die cause it kinda feels like my results are so skewed that they're no longer a part of my original experiment on speed and weight. Last august at my shave/taper meet i went 26.5 in the 50 free LCM (in my old aquablade). This converts to about a 22.9 scy if you agree with converters. I didn't swim the 100 in august shaved and tapered. Weight was 257. Best unshaved 100 this year was 51.5(24.2) (in my aquablade) at 258lbs New results: Early March (shave/taper) 50y free - 22.3 - Aquablade - 252lbs 100y free - 49.6(23.5 split) - Aquablade - 252lbs Early April (shave/retaper) 50y free - 22.4 - FSpro - 251lbs 100y free - 48.9(23.3 split) - FSpro - 251lbs I'd love to compare to some of the other swims this year, but none of them were shave/taper meets. All my meets are at different pools, different times of the year, moved to a track start, and learned a few things. There are just so many variables that could help explain the vast differences in speed rather than just weight. Anyone else kept track of any weight/time/speed results? This topic still interests me, but I may have to restart keeping track once I can keep some of the variables more constant. I just keep improving too much for it to be just weight. lol. Theres just no way that 6lbs and a shave gave me 2 seconds in the 100. On the bright side I'm 6 tenths off my college 50 time and still 60lbs heavier.

I think this is a great thread and I've been wanting to chime in for a long time with my own data, but my data is even more incomplete and misleading. I lost about 15 pounds since November but rarely weighed myself before then, as for the last 20+ years I operated under the mistaken belief that I could eat and drink whatever I wanted because I had athletic things going. My times this season were consistently about 2 seconds faster (same meets year over year) in the 100 free and a few tenths faster in the 50. But the one fastest time (outlier/miracle) I put up last season in the 100 did not improve at all. But I do not have the talent/speed or background that you have so I have likely made technique improvements in the couple years I came back to swimming. If I did have the weight data to plot with my times it would probably be a perfect correlation, but it would be like a comparison of my times vs. the weather in Norway. At the same time I made huge improvements in long distance races and cardio ability. While it now feels so much better and I am a better swimmer overall, I might have to concur that the effect of weight on pure speed in a sprint is likely minimal to non-existent. (In the 50 free I am battling like hell to end up shaving a total one second and I know my technique has improved at the same time). There are likely side benefits of flexibility, etc. but if your stroke is already functioning at the highest level despite the weight, then I'm not sure the resistance factor adds up to much. I kind of hope that is wrong because I wish another 15-20 pounds of weight loss alone would give me the 2%/2 second improvement I need to finally break 1:00 in the 100 free. But for me I've got to lose that weight anyway as in my 40s it has caught up to me health-wise. But I know you don't want to hear about that.

I know it affects. I'm going to try and see how much it does as I train for Spring Nats 2012. Currently at 251 and my goal is to hit 230 for Spring Nats. I have meets scheduled starting in Sept thru April so I will track my weight and times and see what happens.

I raced unshaved/untapered in late feb at 195 pounds and went 25.4 50 fly and 23.7 50 free. I then raced shaved/tapered at nats at 178 and went 24.3 (23.7 relay) in the 50 fly and 22.7 50 free. And my 50 free was leading off the 200 free relay just 10 minutes after my 23.7 50 fly on the medley relay!! Same suit for both. Hard to tell how much the shave and taper helped, but I def felt better at 178 than 195!! Do you happen to have stats on the last shave/taper performance? That'd prolly be a better indication unless there was some other factors at play.

but I def felt better at 178 than 195!! I think this is the real key to weight loss and speed. 20 lbs of lard distributed over the body makes very little difference in the water racing, but the diet it took to shed the weight, how you look in the mirror, the lack of gut hanging over the speedo, etc results in feeling better more often which leads to training better more often and better training is the actual reason for better racing. Just a theory

I think this is the real key to weight loss and speed. 20 lbs of lard distributed over the body makes very little difference in the water racing, but the diet it took to shed the weight, how you look in the mirror, the lack of gut hanging over the speedo, etc results in feeling better more often which leads to training better more often and better training is the actual reason for better racing. Just a theory And that theory may very well prove to be the answer to this whole question. Like I said before, is being skinny a requirement or a side effect of training hard and swimming fast? I'm trying to stay scientific in my approach. I train just as hard as I would if I looked better, and I don't let that motivate or demotivate me as far as the work I put in on a weekly basis (which remains at the same 6000-7000m/week). I also don't diet so I can't blame better ingredients for my success :)

I train for Spring Nats 2012. Gridge rematch 2012?

I know it affects. I'm going to try and see how much it does as I train for Spring Nats 2012. Currently at 251 and my goal is to hit 230 for Spring Nats. I have meets scheduled starting in Sept thru April so I will track my weight and times and see what happens. 251... an equal :applaud: We'll have to square off if I can make nats next year :)