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 don't have much hair to start with (short thin hair on arms and legs only) so shaving doesn't seem to help me much. I do it anyway though. I imagine someone needing a multi-phase hair removal process like my teammates would get a lot more benefit. How much seems to be debatable.
From what I remember of fluid dynamics, shaving would help more with streamlining where water flow around you is more laminar. Hair will tend to disrupt the flow of water around your body and make it turbulent sooner and further forward which I suppose will break the streamline sooner. The presence of thicker heavier hair likely increases the effect. Once you start splashing around in the water you are going to initiate turbulent flow ahead of your body so I don't think shaving matters much at this point. It might help some for *** stroke during gliding. That's my best guess based upon engineering classes I took years ago.
No doubt, it feels fast so I see a psychological effect. Throw in tapering along with the adrenaline surge from competition and it is hard to quantify. I used to race sailboats and this was always a concern for non-drydocked boats. All sorts of lake funk builds up over time on the hull of the boat and you allways see someone jumping in to scrub the keel off before a race. Drydocked boats allways raced faster but was it due to a better underwater surface or all the cash for other equipment that people who drydocked could afford? I raced with some owners that were very particular about skin drag. Before the boats were launched, we would run 600 grit sandpaper lengthwise down the hull. Don't know if it mattered that much but all the fast boats were doing it so we were also.
I don't have much hair to start with (short thin hair on arms and legs only) so shaving doesn't seem to help me much. I do it anyway though. I imagine someone needing a multi-phase hair removal process like my teammates would get a lot more benefit. How much seems to be debatable.
From what I remember of fluid dynamics, shaving would help more with streamlining where water flow around you is more laminar. Hair will tend to disrupt the flow of water around your body and make it turbulent sooner and further forward which I suppose will break the streamline sooner. The presence of thicker heavier hair likely increases the effect. Once you start splashing around in the water you are going to initiate turbulent flow ahead of your body so I don't think shaving matters much at this point. It might help some for *** stroke during gliding. That's my best guess based upon engineering classes I took years ago.
No doubt, it feels fast so I see a psychological effect. Throw in tapering along with the adrenaline surge from competition and it is hard to quantify. I used to race sailboats and this was always a concern for non-drydocked boats. All sorts of lake funk builds up over time on the hull of the boat and you allways see someone jumping in to scrub the keel off before a race. Drydocked boats allways raced faster but was it due to a better underwater surface or all the cash for other equipment that people who drydocked could afford? I raced with some owners that were very particular about skin drag. Before the boats were launched, we would run 600 grit sandpaper lengthwise down the hull. Don't know if it mattered that much but all the fast boats were doing it so we were also.
