Being a novice swimmer I have been swimming in regular trunks (almost to the knees, but not as loose/large as board shorts) up to now. However, I recently received a pair of speedos which I used in training for my last two swim sessions and my times were noticeably faster.
Does anyone have any stats about the approximate time differences between shorts vs speedos? I did a brief seach over the weekend, but didn’t find anything all that reliable. My times have been improving gradually recently (recovering from an infection) so I don’t have a reliable baseline against which to judge recent times, but it would seem I am up to 5 secs faster per 100m in the speedos which seems like a lot. Naturally I am hoping some of this is underling improvement but I suspect most, if not all, is just down to the change in gear.
Not that I’m aware of. The added drag from the suit slows you down directly (like riding in baggy clothes would) but it also can mess with your body position and hip motion which would slow you down more, but in an unpredictable fashion…which makes quantifying it that much more difficult. You could design an experiment to figure it out (switching suits over the course of multiple workouts), but that sounds like too much work. I would just use the new suit and accept that you are faster, regardless of how you got there.
It sounds like 5 seconds difference from what you are saying. Unless you are asking “can I just get 5 seconds per hundred faster from one day to the next?”. In which case the answer is 95+% No!.
My advice is to swim with the speedo. Its better to train faster as opposed to slower. Also, it’s easier to mentally measure the drag reduction that stroke improvements are making with the speedo. With those shorts blowing around in the water it becomes tougher to determine what is helping and what isn’t.
I train swimming in trunks. I would train dragging an anchor if they would let me.
Admittedly, I’m not a swimming expert but I see no difference in swimming in trunks or a drag suit as I see a lot of folks doing so I have a hard time believing that it’s going to mess up my stroke.
The difference in board shorts and jammers is 5-10 seconds per hundred for me. I try to keep the same perceived effort for each hundred and have done a couple of different sets to check myself.
Why don’t you just go back to the regular bathing suits and see?
I always wear regular bathing suits and no hair cap when practicing in the pool. Speedos underneath. Some people wear 2 regular bathing suits, with the outer one who cut up for drag. Some wear panty hose for drag.
I would say for 100 yards, difference could be 2-3 seconds - maybe. Alot of factors to consider.
Don’t get to discouraged with your 100 yard time in a pool with/without regular bathing suit and hair cap. Slap a wetsuit on and do open water swim, and you may potentially be talking about 7-8 seconds faster per 100 yards - assuming you are average swimmer.
it’s not just opposition to forward motion you’re getting, i believe your hip position in the water changes as well. my buddy started swimming with our master’s group for a few months and couldn’t improve his body position until he finally started wearing tri shorts to swim. the coach finally was able to get him to do things that he’d been barking at him about since day 1 just by wearin the suit.
Also, i don’t know about you guys, but my stroke just FEELS better when i’m moving faster. If i don’t have my speedo for practice, the most drag i’ll tack on is a small drag suit.
The difference in board shorts and jammers is 5-10 seconds per hundred for me. I try to keep the same perceived effort for each hundred and have done a couple of different sets to check myself.
Why don’t you just go back to the regular bathing suits and see?
I always wear regular bathing suits and no hair cap when practicing in the pool. Speedos underneath. Some people wear 2 regular bathing suits, with the outer one who cut up for drag. Some wear panty hose for drag.
I would say for 100 yards, difference could be 2-3 seconds - maybe. Alot of factors to consider.
Don’t get to discouraged with your 100 yard time in a pool with/without regular bathing suit and hair cap. Slap a wetsuit on and do open water swim, and you may potentially be talking about 7-8 seconds faster per 100 yards - assuming you are average swimmer.
The 2 speedos things is so you can keep wearing speedos which are seethrough by themselves or that have lost all of their elasticity due to chlorine etc. They get cut up from chlorine ‘erosion’.
to reply to Cervelo Apple, I am only doing 100’s in around 1:40-1:45
I will train for a few more weeks, establish a normal range in the speedos, then do a session in the old shorts and see if I can get some reliable comparitive results and report back… don’t hold your breath though!
Why don’t you just go back to the regular bathing suits and see?
I always wear regular bathing suits and no hair cap when practicing in the pool. Speedos underneath. Some people wear 2 regular bathing suits, with the outer one who cut up for drag. Some wear panty hose for drag.
I would say for 100 yards, difference could be 2-3 seconds - maybe. Alot of factors to consider.
Don’t get to discouraged with your 100 yard time in a pool with/without regular bathing suit and hair cap. Slap a wetsuit on and do open water swim, and you may potentially be talking about 7-8 seconds faster per 100 yards - assuming you are average swimmer.
The 2 speedos things is so you can keep wearing speedos which are seethrough by themselves or that have lost all of their elasticity due to chlorine etc. They get cut up from chlorine ‘erosion’.
No i don’t mean 2 speedos. We would wear two regular bathing suits with the outer one cut up into strips with some scissors to make it look like something a court jester would wear.
We weren’t allowed to wear just speedos in practice.
I’ve done a good number of 100s interval training with both jammers and my regular non-compression swim shorts.
I am 8-10sec/100yds faster with the jammers, consistently. To the point that it’s pretty demoralizing for me to not wear them.
This was true at 2:00/100 pace, and even now at 1:40/100 pace. Still pretty much 8-10sec/100 on both. It will also depend on how ‘baggy’ your swim shorts are - I suspect my shorts were slower than even board shorts, as they were poofy and not the same thicker material as board shorts which would at least stay straight in the water.
I also found that wearing a compression T-shirt for sun protection also slowed me about the same. When I wore shirt + baggies, it was ridiculous how slow I was. +15-20s/100!
No i don’t mean 2 speedos. We would wear two regular bathing suits with the outer one cut up into strips with some scissors to make it look like something a court jester would wear.
We weren’t allowed to wear just speedos in practice.
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Is this just an American thing? In my squad everyone wears speedo’s, one guy has just started wearing jammers, occasionally people wear tri shorts just to test them out in the water for non-wetsuit swims and no-one ever wears something that isn’t skin tight. The only time I don’t see people in speedo’s are the occasional times I go to the public pool but even then it’s only the people walking that wear baggy shorts.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone intentionally adding drag and I train in a squad that has olympians on one side of us and elite triathletes on the other (I don’t swim with them, just stuck between them)
No i don’t mean 2 speedos. We would wear two regular bathing suits with the outer one cut up into strips with some scissors to make it look like something a court jester would wear.
We weren’t allowed to wear just speedos in practice.
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Is this just an American thing? In my squad everyone wears speedo’s, one guy has just started wearing jammers, occasionally people wear tri shorts just to test them out in the water for non-wetsuit swims and no-one ever wears something that isn’t skin tight. The only time I don’t see people in speedo’s are the occasional times I go to the public pool but even then it’s only the people walking that wear baggy shorts.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone intentionally adding drag and I train in a squad that has olympians on one side of us and elite triathletes on the other (I don’t swim with them, just stuck between them)
not referring to triathlon swim practice, but competitive swimming.
at the end of the day, just depends what level you are at. If you are swimming a 0:55 100 yard free, your training will be different vs. if you are in the middle of the pack 1:00-1:08 where every second counts.
While our practices were pretty strict, other teams wouldn’t care about speedos but a few days before important meets, they would again wear extra drag (panty hose shirts and pants). Also had to do with peaking at the end of the season vs. beginning.
So I just got it ingrained in me to wear a regular swim suit and no cap in the pool during practice. Makes a wetsuit feel like I have an extra propeller on.
I am not sure how tangible this is, but I was always coached to use a Speedo brief and nothing else. Trunks are just bad in so many ways, but you simply can’t feel the water. Feeling the water is crucial for the development of a swimmer. I was always told to never use a drag suit because it changes the way your hips move water through your legs (Certain jammers can enhance water flow if they fit correctly ie. super tight, but only use for races). And, on a side note, if you do quite a bit of pulling, a Speedo will allow you to grip a pull buoy much easier.