Shark Swimsuit Designs?
Swimsuits with Shark Skin Design, Any Evidence?
Streamlined sharks are renowned for their effortless swimming. But no studies have yet tested the claims of drag reduction under dynamic and controlled conditions in which the swimming speed and hydrodynamics of shark skin and skin-like materials can be quantitatively compared with those of controls lacking surface ornamentation or with surfaces in different orientations. George Lauder from Harvard University suggests that fish have long inspired human engineers, but more recently attention has focused on how the fish's remarkable skin boosts swimming.
Artificially Enhancing Swimsuit?
Artificially Enhanced Swimmers
TWO years after the stop was put on manufacturers from producing competition swimsuits that might enhance performance, Speedo has gone in another direction developing a suit, cap and goggles combination for the 2012 Olympics that it claims will be the most streamlined in history.
Stroke differences between front crawl sprint and endurance swimmers at sprint pace
No Stroke Differences
Swimmers should use similar technique for short and long distance front crawl events. At the elite level, swimmers tend to specialize in a particular event, which suits their anthropometrics, heredity, stroke and conditioned physiological characteristics. Generally coaches focus on stroke rate and short duration of the pull without any decrease in stroke mechanics efficency ie shorter stroke length, when training sprinters.
Paddle Sizes - Small or Large
Paddle Size Influences Technqiue
Swimming coaches regularly use swimming paddles to improve the strength of their swimmers and also to enhance the stroke velocity. Paddles can be a great way to overload the upper body to gain swim-specific upper body strength. Some coaches feel that BIGGER IS BETER! This way of thinking (bigger is better) can cause problems if the stroke efficiency deteriorates.
A recent study investigated the effect of different sizes of hand paddles on bilateral propulsive force difference (BFD) in the crawl stroke. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the possible modifications caused by different sizes of hand paddles in the bilateral force difference during front crawl swimming.
To Breath or Not To Breath?
To Breath or Not To Breath?
To breath or not to breath that is the question! Many coaches encourage and train their swimmers to complete sprints with a low number of breaths. Coaches use hypoxic sets and also short sprints no breathing sets. These sets do not cause physiological adaptation but merely to train swimmers to ignore the breathing reflex. You can slow down when you take a breath, so sprinters tend train to do 50's with one breath in competition, so they don't waste time in the race.
Your body has more than enough O2 to sustain you for the 20-25 seconds it takes to swim a 50. Alexander Popov pictured left, usually took one breath on the first and last 50m of the 100m, two breaths in total.
A study by Stelios G. Psycharakis, Carla McCabe investigated Shoulder and hip roll differences between breathing and non-breathing conditions in front crawl swimming.??The scientists focused on the effect of shoulder roll and hip roll of swimmers during front crawl for non-breathing and preferred-side breathing conditions; to assess the differences in the size and effect of these characteristics of these variables between non-breathing and preferred-side breathing conditions, and resulting impact on sprint swimming performance.
