what difference does various swimwear make to race times?

hollingr

A few people have poked fun at me because I plan on wearing just regular, run of the mill togs (think down to knee loose shorts with pockets type togs) to an open water swimming race next week.. a race where the overwhelming majority will be wearing sleek trisuits etc.. I'm not worried about temperature I have trained in open water all summer. I won't be competing at the top end, I will hopefully be middle of the table completing in just under 30 mins.

So I was wondering how much of a difference would these togs make to times over a 1.5k race, when compared to jammers, trisuit, competitive trunks etc.

I looked around the internet and all I found was really vague assertions that modern swimwear are faster for olympic athletes, by reducing drag and o2 consumption.. has anyone ever found any good articles discussing this or some sort of rule of thumb for comparing various swimwear please send my direction!

hollingr

i know there is a difference (I am an engineer!!) I have just never heard/found any data about how much the drag changes translate to swim times, except at olympic level where seconds and even milliseconds are a big deal. I want info for joe schmoe not elite athlete!

Freddio

I would say it would add 5 minutes onto your time if you did 1500 in 25 minutes. It would all depend on your stamina levels but would be very debilitating for the sake of 30 euro for a pair of jammers in Arnotts.

hollingr

thanks fred, will find out soon enough.. got a pair for 15 euro out at the national aquatic centre through swimkit, will be interesting to see how my times are affected.

Here is a pool swim I did the other day: 31mins 22secs for 1.5 km... no fancy tumble turns and very little kick off, and 2 guys repeatedly swimming in my way
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/368181663#

My best open water time so far is 29mins 50 sec (in the sea) for a 1.5km course.

will do both with the new kit and compare the effects in open water and pool. will post here over the next few days!

hollingr

hey so here are the two swims less than a week apart, i definitely pushed myself harder on the jammer swim but even that wouldn't account for the 3 min drop in time.. pretty cool to see the difference in SWOLF etc!

with board shorts: 31~ min http://connect.garmin.com/activity/368181663
with jammers: 28~ min http://connect.garmin.com/activity/371020078

Finelli

Great experiment - did you feel faster in the jammers too?

I think there is a psychological effect at play also