That began the most revolutionary aspects of the system: redesigning the goggles and cap. They scanned the heads of athletes from around the world and merged the results in a software program to generate an average head shape, one that fits 95 percent of people. Santry, who has developed helmets for cyclists, noted that time trial racers use an aerodynamic teardrop shape. They designed a swimmer’s cap that does something similar,building a place for a woman’s hair that creates a tail on the back of the head.
“From research done in Beijing we knew goggles and caps caused a lot of drag, but this time round we had the internal expertise and time to produce a research-driven goggle from scratch,” Santry adds. “This allowed us to really get playing in that area and take the crazy superhero-type sketches to reality.”
A new 3-D printer at Aqualab fabricated prototypes of the cap and goggles for testing within hours, rather than sending drawings to a manufacturer and waiting weeks or months. “In the past we couldn’t do many changes to the original design,” Santry says. “With this process, we completely revolutionized the goggle from scratch.”
For the suit, the team spent a year inventing a new fabric that creates compression changes across its surface where more lycra is knitted into some areas. In the end, Fastskin is Spanx on steroids, compressing a body three times more than the LZR. The suit constricts the stomach the least and the chest, buttocks and hips the most, attempting to mold swimmers into an unblemished tube.
Speedo has applied for nine patents for the Fastskin-3. The company says only six machines in the world are capable of producing the compression fabric; it owns all of them.
In the final stages of testing, athletes wearing the suits were pulled in a high-tech pool lab at the InnoSportlab De Tongelreep in the Netherlands recorded by underwater cameras and a drag measurement system. Speedo claims the Fastskin-3, when measured against a standard suit, reduces passive drag, the resistance produced by a swimmer's body while it is held in a streamlined position, by 16.6 percent and active drag, the resistance at the surface, by 5.2 percent. By measuring oxygen in and out of the body while swimmers pulled themselves over an underwater ladder, researchers at Iowa State reported the system improves oxygen economy by 11 percent.
“It’s like miles per gallon in a car,” Santry says. “You can swim at the same speed, but use less fuel. It allows a swimmer to go harder for longer.”
Speedo scanned its key athletes to create a 3-D avatar to size the suit. Just wearing the Fastskin requires athleticism. Some female swimmers, who step into the suit through an armhole, reported it took them as much as an hour to wriggle into it on their first attempt. Santry says it can be done in 10 to 15 minutes with practice. “The first time you do it, it’s daunting,” he adds. “There’s quite a bit of compression in the suit. It can feel a bit alien.”
How much faster does that tight, tubular fit help a swimmer in a 500-meter race? “We haven’t gotten down to that detail,” he replies. “When you’re comparing suits, there are so many different factors.”
He points out that Phelps, Rebecca Adlington and Ryan Lochte swam their best times in years using the system in recent months (all have lucrative sponsorship deals with Speedo; Phelps earned a $1 million bonus for his 2008 performance, which he donated to charity).
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Add CommentIn recent months I have heard of polyurethane and polyethylene being used to do amazing things as part of next-generation body armor, sports equipment and artificial hips. And now competitive swimsuits. Amazing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe simplest solution to this problem is to require all competitors to be completely naked. Swimming is seeing technology external to that which alters the body now, instead of later, because fluid dynamics are already somewhat well-understood; we can expect uniforms to play a greater role in performance in many other Olympic competitions in the near future. Asking competitors to abandon the notion of "pure" competition is a bit much a bit too fast, but a ban on clothing is very easy to explain, and solves much of the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll the men wear the same suits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Kingoftheinternet that if we really want our athletes to be purists in their quest for Olympic glory based purely on physical strength and ability is to do it completely naked. However, we all know that it's never going to happen that way. The next best thing is to embrace modernity and make sure that all the Olympians have access to the same kind of high tech suits/gears to even out the playing field among athletes from poor and rich countries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry, but...Captain Avenger? Really?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven without clothes, swimsuit, they can find way to modify the body itself with microsurgical interventions to add buoyancy with implanted airtight nanotubes or some other kind of material. That's not the obligation to go nake that will stop the imagination to find ways to circumvent the rules.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe LZR suit probably improves performance bec. Phelps set 7 world records wearing it. Now he can't even get 3rd place without the suit. Adding bouyancy and reducing drag are even more effective in long distance swimming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmm I should try that LZR suit to improve my time in 1.5 km swim in triathlon. But removing it afterwards would waste time. I can't wear it cycling and running.
The controversial discussion of the use of technology to enhance human performance in the competitive arena is going to have to quicken itself in order to keep up with the technology. That said - TCT Magazine wrote an article about how Speedo's Aqualab uses Objet 3D printers in their design process: http://ow.ly/cvwtK If you're interested in other stories about 3D printing being used in the world of sports, check out Objet's Facebook page where we are covering the topic during the Olympics: https://www.facebook.com/Objet.3d.printer. Disclaimer - I work for Objet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know this is about productive as designing a powered golf club and a radar tracking golf ball. Is there no end to this attempt to make all records meaningless and turn the games into a design contest. Of course it makes millions for the designer but ignores the spirit of the Olympics. Contestants now get there expenses paid, and need not work like a true amateur would. The disgrace of including professional basket ball players because of Russia's dominance,and professional tennis players for the same misbegotten reason. Millions spent in research to win a medal worth about 10 bucks. Millions spent in advertising etc, etc. to Corporation's delight.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnough I say ---- "enough no more it is not as sweet as twas before"
read their for there
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