The effect of reducing atriction is really relevant ?
In: Physics
Even if it has no physical effect (and I’m not confident in saying it doesn’t), I’m sure the added confidence the swimmer gets from doing it would be worth a few fractions of a second.
Absolutely, even if it only helps a fraction of a percent, those swimmers are doing hundreds of things which all add fractions of percents which add up to significant improvements. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34247629
At the level they compete at, it is. I’m sure someone would be able to explain it in a more scientific way than me, but any sort of hair can add drag (even if it’s minuscule) and when you’re competing at a level as high as they do, milliseconds can be the deciding factor in who wins a race
Absolutely. The hair increases surface area and causes turbulence, both of which contribute to drag. There’s no significant side effects, so there’s no reason not to. You will also notice that the head hair of olympic athletes are either basically bald, or in a tight bun.
I don’t know about body hair, but the total surface area of all the hair on your head is about 42ft, according to this post (if your hair is 6in long)
[Request] What is the total surface area of a person’s hair?
byu/rotabagge intheydidthemath
Body hair is likely much lower, but probably still accounts for a decent enough surface area. Even if it only was 0.2sq foot, considering the fact that the human body is about 20sq ft in surface area, that would still reduce drag by 1% (since surface area is directly proportional to drag). I would think that, for an Olympic swimmer, even a 1% reduction in drag is worth something.
At the Olympic level, absolutely. It’ll get you a few tenths of a second which is a big deal in short races. It can also add up on your splits to a few seconds for longer races.
I only ever swam at the high school level and we used to shave down for finals every year. We did a bunch of other things like training extra hard and then tapering off so it’s hard to isolate shaving from other factors, but I always swam my best times during finals and it just subjectively felt faster in the water.
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