is really effective for Olympic swimmers to shave body hairs ?

Question

The effect of reducing atriction is really relevant ?

In: Physics

Answer 1

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.