I’ve been in a thread on a swimming board about how much shaving will reduce times in a race. I’ve been a swimmer since high school, took off college and now come back. I have as of yet heard any good evidence of shaving helping enough to justify doing it.
So far I’ve always heard basically the same thing, someone says, well I shaved and took 2+ seconds off my time. Usually though they only shave for the “big” meet, which means they’ve done more then shave, they’ve tapered, they’ve trained for the meet, they usually eat better, and they are psyched on the day of the meet. I too drop times at big meets without shaving.
I know that the top swimmers want every hundreth of a second that they can get and I can see body hair taking a bit of time off, but not enough for the average swimmer to ever notice. So maybe someone has either seen a study like this, participated in one, or have some real evidence that shaving will take lots of time off. I just don’t see how body hair can make that much of a difference.
See this is what this board has done to me, it makes me question everything I hear.
Since it seems to have gotten eaten.