You may have heard of the Dayton Flyer Handicap model. Its purpose is basically to calculate what your running time would be if you were at “optimal” size, apparently a scale model of yourself which weighed less. I’m not sure what I think of the specifics of the model since they don’t take height into consideration, but the principle is sound, lighter people have a *large *advantage in running, even relative to heavier individuals who are lean. I think that’s one of the biggest advantages Kenyans and Ethiopians have, they are able to be healthy, well fed and strong at insanely low weights.
As many people already know, the fastest swimmers in the world are overwhelmingly tall. So is the height advantage a huge advantage like it is in terms of running, or is it small yet significant enough that we only see the tall athletes in the olympics and world championships? I’m 5’11’', what if tomorrow I was magically 7 inches taller tomorrow, probably scale model but 7" taller, and I had the same physiological variables, would I be a lot faster or basically the same?
Being a student of the freestyle stroke for close to 3 decades I have come to one conclusion on the height advantage. Might be right might be wrong. I feel one can be 7’5" with crappy body position and they will get trounced by a 5’ tall girl if she is efficient in through the water. More to the point I don’t know that comparing body length outstretched would have any accuracy unless all the participants had the exact same body position. Given what I see at the pool any said model would be like throwing darts over your shoulder. That said if we assume a perfect Michael Phelps body position of course the taller person would have an advantage.
If a short swimmer grows a foot over night with a shitty position they will probably be just as slow. Perhaps even slower simply b/c assuming their position is one of high drag all they did was add more drag than they had b/f they went to bed.
If a short swimmer grows a foot over night adding to their great body position I think they would automatically get faster w/o any other changes.
So many variables but in general, taller swimmers will have larger feet (paddles) and hands (more paddles). Plus with longer arms should have more surface area to pull with.
To answer your question, yes height is a positive in swimming faster. Just take a look at any freestyle final, it is land of the giants now. That is not to say that we do not have our Spud Webbs out there, but it is painfully obvious that at the very elite level, it pays to be taller. When you watch those finals Phelps was in, he would often look to be one of the smaller guys, and he is like 6’5" i believe. I think Yang is 6’8". All things being equal, you get to take fewer strokes, have a longer hull(longer boats go faster), and longer levers in which to move through the water with.
I have watched elite lever swimming for a long time now, and the guys and gals just keep getting taller and taller on the pointy end, so it makes sense that it must be an advantage.
I guess sticking to the “scale model of myself but taller” is the best way to approach this. If I am larger, it effectively makes the pool smaller, relatively speaking. If I’m 10% taller, as in this example, I can reach 10% further, I don’t think its out of the question you’d be 5-10% faster right off the bat.
Yeah, so is it a big advantage or just enough to alienate shorter athletes from the championships? Anyone know if a short guy has ever broken 15:00 for the 1500?
Hell, back in my day Brian Goddell went right about 15 flat, and that was a world record at the time i believe, and he is about 5’10" or less. And as i recall the 1st guy to break 20 seconds for a 50 was just 5’10", a guy from Tennessee i think it was. Like i said, there are plenty of examples of shorter folks doing big things in swimming, just that there are fewer and fewer these days at the pointy end.
Tons of variables, but yes I think you could say as long as you are not adding drag along with that increased overall length you would get faster. Ponder if the position sucked and let’s say half that extra height was added to your lower body which is dragging 3 feet under the water? You might indeed be slower in that case.
The fastest pool swimmer I know is a woman about 5’7". She drowns everyone with her wake and I mean everyone. She’s former D1 and a beast. Swam next to her last weekend and she was doing some weird set of 100 then 200 then 100 then 200 for like 25 minutes @ about 1:05 to 1:10 pace. She was not even winded it was disgusting!
It might be a small advantage, but you have to be going pretty fast before it matters. If you are in the 2:00/100 and above crowd, it ain’t your height baby!
Of course, stroke rate complicates the height issue, you may be taller but your stroke rate would slow down. I’ve seen some pretty fast shorties from time to time, I couldn’t believe how fast this 6-7 year old girl was going in the pool the other day, it was like an optical illusion, moved like a water skeeter.
Hell, back in my day Brian Goddell went right about 15 flat, and that was a world record at the time i believe, and he is about 5’10" or less. And as i recall the 1st guy to break 20 seconds for a 50 was just 5’10", a guy from Tennessee i think it was. Like i said, there are plenty of examples of shorter folks doing big things in swimming, just that there are fewer and fewer these days at the pointy end.
The frst guy to break 20 was j bottom and he was petty big. the 2nd guy was g schatz and he only 5-8. i consider gary a friend and would say twq things about his swimming: his technique is great (duh?) but he is physically really strong and he really knew how to tap into the anaerobic power system. he went a 24.7 50m (lc) at age 46 which at the time was a masters wr. but at the same meet he only went a 19:xx in the 1500. His physical limittations showed up in that 1500
I’ll try to make this quick, but here’s two stories from personal experience:
In 2008 I swam the 100 and 200 fly at the US Olympic Trials. At this meet speedo gave everyone a new LZR suit to compete in. Since I am 5’9" I ended up having to wear a women’s body suit. Apperantly it’s so rare that any males under 6’ qualify for trials Speedo didn’t have any male suits that would fit anyone under 6’.
Luckily you can’t really tell the difference between the mens and womens suits.
In terms of being taller and having an advantage, if you have good technique, heck yes it’s an advantage! After most national meets they have print outs with the top 8 swimmers’ stats (How far you went under water, how fast your starts and turns are, splits to 15m, stroke count… etc.) that I used to study. Now for a person who is 5’9" my DPS isn’t bad. In the 200 fly I would average 24 strokes/50m, and Phelps would avg 18 strokes (this is with our underwaters being the same distance). Now over the course of 200m, this means that I ended up taking 24 more strokes then Phelps. It’s not that my stroke was inefficient, he was just taller then me, but when you are sprinting for 2:00 24 extra strokes is a huge disadvantage.
I know we are talking more about freestyle here, but it’s the same idea. Especially when it comes to the sprints and the huge guys can pull deeper and stronger (which means being able to reach the “thicker” water). Also, in a sport that finishes come down to hundreths of seconds, in quite a few races if I was head to head with another competitor, and we were coming in to the wall stroke for stroke, being smaller I would usually be the one getting out touched just because my arm length was not as long as the guys who were 6’5" next to me.
So many variables but in general, taller swimmers will have larger feet (paddles) and hands (more paddles). Plus with longer arms should have more surface area to pull with.
But, technique trumps these things.
And for flip turns, they don’t have to go as close to the wall.
So the taller you are, you are effectively shortening the pool.
Thanks for the input, one thing I like about triathlons is the lack of “morphological freaks” having a distinct advantage like they do in single sport competitions. Sometimes I think maybe I’d like to be taller but aerodynamics on the bike and running speed favor more average height athletes. 18 vs 24 strokes though, that is pretty crazy.
Thanks for the input, one thing I like about triathlons is the lack of “morphological freaks” having a distinct advantage like they do in single sport competitions. Sometimes I think maybe I’d like to be taller but aerodynamics on the bike and running speed favor more average height athletes. 18 vs 24 strokes though, that is pretty crazy.
