We employed the services of Blue Seventy Pro Triathlete Scott Neyedli to run some tests at Challenge Stadium in Perth.
Below is a fascinating piece of 4-way footage showing the effect on body position of:
| 1) A 2010 Blue Seventy Helix Wetsuit | 2) A 2010 Blue Seventy PZ3 Speedsuit |
| 3) A Pull Buoy | 4) Normal Bathers / Swimming Costume |
We asked Scott to swim at the same level of effort for each swim – and whilst this isn’t precise, it gives a pretty good idea of the speed benefits of the different equipment.
Take a good look at the high quality slow motion footage of Scott, particularly how high he sits in the water in each case. It’s well worth viewing in HD, even if it takes a while to buffer to your computer:
split times
You can clearly see from the video how much higher in the water Scott sits with his full Helix wetsuit – it also easily produces the fastest 50m time of 36.5 seconds for his steady effort.
Next up, the PZ3 speedsuit also improves Scott’s body position and gives the second fastest 50m split of 38.8 seconds.
In third place with a time of 40.4 seconds, is Scott swimming with normal bathers.
Lastly, Scott swims 41.3 seconds with a pull-buoy. Although his body position sits marginally higher than swimming normally with bathers, he seems to be losing some propulsive benefit without kicking. It is also possible that the extra drag from the pull-buoy is significant here.
our conclusions
The footage shows how much higher in the water Scott sits with his Helix suit and the large speed benefit he gains – around 4 seconds per 50m. Since we are relying on Scott’s judgement of the same level of effort for each swim, we cannot be too exact over the speed gain of the Helix suit, however it is clearly signficantly quicker.
The benefit of the PZ3 suit is also obvious, helping Scott sit higher in the water and gaining him around 1.5 seconds per 50m. The low friction nature of the PZ3 suit may well be a factor here.
Many triathletes are a similar speed, or quicker, with a pull-buoy due to an improved body position. For Scott this isn’t the case. Scott has quite a propulsive leg kick – which tends to build when swimming quicker – and it’s possible that when swimming with a pull buoy this loss of propulsion is significant. Elite pool swimmers normally have very propulsive kicks and they too would be slower with a pull buoy than without.
Provided by Swim Smooth http://www.swimsmooth.com/1009-3-3-1.html