How Fast Were the Fast Suits?

Published: June 15, 2014

Introduction

For the purposes of this publication, I have segmented the textile swimming suits (i.e., basic) vs non-textile swimming suits (i.e., fast) into these four eras:

1. Textile Suits (Pre-2008)

2. Non-Textile Suit (2008)

3. Non-Textile Suit (2009)

4. Textile Suit (2010+)

The reason for the granular distinction is because in 2008 the Non-Textile suits were still ‘new’ but in 2009 the science had improved and more brands (e.g., wetsuits) had entered the market.

There are a lot of ways you could approach this analysis, including taking one particular swimmer and comparing their times over each era (e.g., Paul Biedermann’s 200 & 400 LCM Freestyle), but the approach I chose to take was to compare the world records of each era on a relative percentile basis in an attempt to understand who benefited the most from the non-textile suits.

The full data analysis is available in the appendix, but for this publication, we will focus on two events:

1. Male 200 LCM Backstroke

2. Female 200 LCM Breaststroke

My original hypothesis was that non-textile suits give an advantage to:

1. Short-axis strokes over long-axis strokes

   • since non-textile suits create less drag by elevating a swimmer closer to the surface of the water, the short-axis strokes serve to benefit the most since they contain more of a glide component (breaststroke more than butterfly)

2. Women over men

   • women historically on average have a higher body fat percentage (roughly 15% for women compared to 10% for men), therefore the non-textile suits have more drag to reduce and elevate

Exhibit 1
Male 200 LCM Backstroke

World Records

• Era 1: Ryan Lochte (March 2007): 1:54.32

• Era 2: Ryan Lochte (August 2008): 1:53.94

• Era 3: Aaron Peirsol (July 2009): 1:51.92

• Era 4: Ryan Lochte (July 2011): 1:52.96

Comparison Across Eras
Note: a negative number means the time got faster across the era while a positive number means the time got slower

• Era 1 –> Era 2: (0.332%)

• Era 2 –> Era 3: (1.773%)

• Era 3 –> Era 4: 0.929%

• Era 1 –> Era 3: (2.099%)

Analysis of Male LCM 200 Backstroke World Records Across Eras

The progression of times shows us that the Male 200 LCM Backstroke benefited from the non-textile suits, most notably in Era 3 where Aaron Peirsol’s world record shaved over 2% off the world record he shared with Ryan Lochte at 1:54.32, the largest Era 1 –> Era 3 delta across the Male 100 & 200 LCM events (but sixth on the list if you include Female events).

Exhibit 2
Female 200 LCM Breaststroke

World Records

• Era 1: Leisel Jones (February 2006): 2:20.54

• Era 2: Rebecca Soni (August 2008): 2:20.22

• Era 3: Annamay Pierse (July 2009): 2:20.12

• Era 4: Rikke Pedersen (August 2013): 2:19.11

Comparison Across Eras
Note: a negative number means the time got faster across the era while a positive number means the time got slower

• Era 1 –> Era 2: (0.228%)

• Era 2 –> Era 3: (0.071%)

• Era 3 –> Era 4: (0.721%)

• Era 1 –> Era 3: (0.299%)

Analysis of Female LCM 200 Breaststroke World Records Across Eras

While the non-textile suits did benefit the Female 200 LCM Breaststroke, the linear decrease in world records shows us that this event benefited more from the swimmer themselves rather than the suit, with four different world record holders and each Era faster than the previous.

Conclusion

As stated in my opening remarks, there are a lot of variations one could take on this analysis, but after reviewing all the results, which can be found here, the conclusion is that women absolutely benefited more from the non-textile suits than men, but as for long-axis vs. short-axis, the data is split.

Footnotes

Author: Elliot Meena

Published: June 15, 2014

Sources: ACE Fitness, Omega Timing, Swimming World

Notes:

• LCM: Long-Course-Meters (i.e., a 50-meter pool)

• Appendix (34 slides)

• Download PDF

• Download Appendix

• Copyright 2022, all rights reserved