Hi-Tech Swimsuits, Tested First Hand
As office perks go, the Olympic swimsuit experience was a mixed bag. On the plus side, I got to road test the same
high-tech suits that some of the greatest swimmers of the world will be wearing
in Beijing. I
also dropped my personal best times significantly. That being said, I had to
squeeze into an extremely constrictive swimsuit in front of a co-worker and
have my performance improvement ascribed to the placebo effect.
For the first test in a TYR suit [described on page 1], I felt good and I swam fast. I was definitely helped both by being in the middle of a swimming-intensive phase of my triathlon training and by not wanting to embarrass myself in front of one of our editors.
Looking back at the test, though, I was unsure about a couple of the immediate observations. Was the suit actually buoyant? As I discovered from Jen’s research for the article, that would be a big deal. More importantly, was my time improvement due to the technological or the psychological benefits of the suit?
As a follow-up, I went back to the pool alone a couple of weekends ago and ran the same field test wearing the Speedo LZR Racer. Swimmers wearing the LZR Racer have broken 37 world records since the suit’s introduction in February—almost every single record that has been broken this year—and athletes are abandoning their sponsors to get the Speedo’s competitive edge. If any suit would make me swim faster, this was it.
I still can’t say for sure whether the suit adds buoyancy. The speed seems to come more from its girdle-like construction. Both the Speedo and TYR versions had noticeably less drag, and hold the lower body in a more streamlined, horizontal position in the water.
And my time? It was slightly better than in my regular TYR shorts, but nowhere near the PR I logged when I donned the racing suit for our editors the first time—all of which suggests that the embarrassment-avoidance effect had a meaningful impact. I may have to invite Jen back for my next triathlon.
– Henry Donahue
