I did a practice shave of my legs last night, to get used to it and also figure out how long it takes me for planning purposes.
Today in practice, I was faster than usual. The most obvious was in my 200 free warm-up. I dps the first 100 and then gradually speed up to about 75%. Usually I am around 3 minutes. Monday, I went 2:51. Today, I was 2:36 with the usual effort level.
My 200 *** warm-up was about 10 seconds faster than usual.
Can shaving really improve things that much? Is some of this because I am tapering?
Also, for those guys who shave your heads, do you also wear a cap? If not, is the bald head better than a cap?
I disagree with the feeling being more important than the decreased drag idea.The enhanced sensation is of some utility,but the drag reduction actually accounts for most of the improvement in drag experiments.If feel was more important than drag no one would have used the late lamented tech suits as they decreased sensation.
I am not so sure this is correct. I saw a paper (I think cited in these forums, tho I can't find it now) where they did a study of the effect. Shaving actually DECREASED nerve stimulation (like a suit does) and this had some physiological effect that I can't quite remember, decreased lactate levels or something. The effect was definitely not mostly due to drag reduction or a psychological effect, is what I recall.
I disagree with the feeling being more important than the decreased drag idea.The enhanced sensation is of some utility,but the drag reduction actually accounts for most of the improvement in drag experiments.If feel was more important than drag no one would have used the late lamented tech suits as they decreased sensation.
I am not so sure this is correct. I saw a paper (I think cited in these forums, tho I can't find it now) where they did a study of the effect. Shaving actually DECREASED nerve stimulation (like a suit does) and this had some physiological effect that I can't quite remember, decreased lactate levels or something. The effect was definitely not mostly due to drag reduction or a psychological effect, is what I recall.
