Recently Speedo introduced the Fastskin. Speedo claims that Fastskin will reduce the drag encountered during swimming and estimates the effect to be in the order of 7.5%. However, actual active drag measurements during swimming were not measured so far. Therefore we measured the active drag using the MAD system in 13 (inter)national Dutch swimmers when wearing the Fastskin and compared the results to the active drag values when wearing conventional swimwear. (click here for previous (1989!!) test of drag effect of triathlon suit)Most subjects showed the following results suggesting no real active drag advantage wearing the Fastskin:

The combined results for all 13 subjects are presented in the next graph:

However, .....A couple of subjects did seem to benefit from the Fastskin. The most extreme case is shown below: At 1.65 m/s a 11% reduction in active drag is observed.But even at that speed no statistical significant difference in drag could be established between the conventional suit and the Fastskin. As indicated in the graph, the confidence intervals of the two curves overlap at 1.65 m/s.

In conclusion: the results of the present test do not support the claims of Speedo: no statistical significant difference in drag was found. It should however be noted that we did not prove that the Fastskin has no effect on drag.

For further information contact Dr Huub Toussaint