Sport Swim Suits – Reducing Drag

What do aircraft and sport swim suits have in common? Seems like a silly question, however engineers and sports enthusiast both focus on reducing the drag as the aircraft passes through the air and the swimmer passes through the water at relatively high speed as well. It turns out that swimming generates turbulence as the swimmer glides through the water in the same manner as an airplane. Turbulence increases the natural drag on a swimmer and can slow them down as they swim through the water. Even a quarter of a second in a swimming race can make a difference between the gold and silver medals.

Athletic groups and sports wear manufactures work together to solve these swimming suit problems. Using some of the same techniques to reduce drag as those used for aircrafts, they have come up with a new sport swim suit. Adding riblets to the swim suit has the effect of reducing the turbulence as they swim through the water and therefore lessen the resulting drag. Swimming is very competitive, and athletic sports teams will spare no expense to find ways to increase a swimmers speed.

With the introduction of this new feature on the swim suits, not only do swimmers swim faster, they feel lighter as well and therefore feel that they can swim faster. The mood of the swimmer is very important during a race and if they feel that they have the best athletic swim suit available with the least drag coefficient, they already are in a mindframe to win the event. This is very important to establish the right frame of mind as you enter a race and prepare to give everything you have to win a swimming event.

Author Notes:

Tamara Hodgins contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.bikini-bikini.com.  As a self appointed specialist she has been designing woman's swimwear and beach wear for over a decade.