During exercise in water children's body temperature are especially likely to be affected by a cold water environment because of their morphological characteristic. There is a lack of information about the recommended environmental condition for elementary school swimming classes based on scientific objective data. This study investigated multiple effects of the environmental condition, morphological characteristics, and swimwear condition on children's thermal sensation during an elementary school swimming class. The sixth-grade elementary school children (n=68) participated in a swimming class conducted in the outdoor pool eight times. They wore a normal swimsuit or a partial coverage wetsuit. During the swimming class, water temperature and ambient temperature were continuously measured. children's thermal sensation was asked at the poolside immediately after each swimming class. Multiple regression analysis was performed to make an estimation equation of children's thermal sensation. The equations contain three predictors of water temperature, swimwear condition, and their morphological characteristics. The result of standardized regression coefficients indicated that, water temperature was the greatest contributor to their thermal sensation, followed by the swimwear condition, and morphological characteristics. On the basis of the analysis, presumably the thermal effect of a partial coverage wetsuit was equivalent to the increase of water temperature by 2.1°C and it makes children feel warmer thermal sensation. Additionally, the thermally comfortable area was indicated as the relationship between water temperature and children's morphological characteristics for each swimwear condition.

Swimsuit is believed to play an important role in swimmer’s performance. In competitive swimming (national, world and Olympic events) it is usually a very short winning time margins that often requires the help of advanced technology to determine the time difference between the winner and loser. Almost over 90% of swimmer’s energy is spent to overcome hydrodynamic resistance during forward motion. Hence, the swimsuits might play an important role in reducing the hydrodynamic resistance and its associated energy loss during the swimming and can contribute positively to the final outcome. Development of efficient swimsuits is an on going process and the performance of swimsuit is believed to be getting better progressively. Currently, swimsuit manufacturers spend huge resources to design swimsuits using new materials and techniques. Very often swimsuit manufacturers claim and counterclaim about the performance of the swimsuits. However, there is no independent study that can verify these claims and counter claims. This paper describes a hydrodynamics comparative evaluation of two commercially available swimsuits and their role that might be played in swimsuit aerodynamics.

Representations of tourism subjects, both people and places, extend beyond specifically tourism media. This paper explores the presummer images of swimwear and beach bodies in Australian women's lifestyle magazines. A content analysis of swimwear images confirmed British findings that there was a general uniformity in the characteristics of the women modelling the swimsuits: young, slim, white ethnicity (but tanned) and able-bodied. Critical Discourse Analysis highlighted that the beach body discourse is in many ways contested. On the one hand the beach is a place of abandonment, but women need to work hard to achieve the required normative image. Women's agency and choice is questioned due to the narrow normative image and the neo-liberal, consumerist systems underlying the discourse.

Abstract The recently concluded 2019 World Swimming Championships was another major swimming competition that witnessed some great progresses achieved by human athletes in many events. However, some world records created 10 years ago back in the era of high-tech swimsuits remained untouched. With the advancements in technical skills and training methods in the past decade, the inability to break those world records is a strong indication that records with the swimsuit bonus cannot reflect the real progressions achieved by human athletes in history. Many swimming professionals and enthusiasts are eager to know a measure of the real world records had the high-tech swimsuits never been allowed. This paper attempts to restore the real world records in Men’s swimming without high-tech swimsuits by integrating various advanced methods in probabilistic modeling and optimization. Through the modeling and separation of swimsuit bias, natural improvement, and athletes’ intrinsic performance, the result of this paper provides the optimal estimates and the 95% confidence intervals for the real world records. The proposed methodology can also be applied to a variety of similar studies with multi-factor considerations.

The primary objective of this research is to investigate and describe the effects of swimsuits' surface profile and seam orientations on aerodynamic drag. Two commercial swimsuits (Speedo LZR and TYR Sayonara) materials were evaluated in a wind tunnel environment using a standard cylindrical experimental arrangement. The effects of swimsuit surface profile and seam orientations on aerodynamic drag were evaluated for a range of Reynolds numbers. The measured drag forces were converted to dimensionless drag coefficients, which were compared for both swimsuits under different conditions. The results show that the material surface structure (roughness and seam orientations) of the swimsuit has significant effect on aerodynamic drag. The seam orientation at 45° has the potential to reduce the drag by around 15% depending on the seam geometry (i.e., seam height, width, etc.) and Reynolds number. The TYR Sayonara swimsuit can provide aerodynamic advantage at low Reynolds number (e.g. below Re = 1.63 × 105) due t...

In competitive swimming, every moment is important and counted. Professional swimmers attempt to utilize every possible legal means to enhance their performance. Using modern swimsuits, swimmers endeavor to reduce hydrodynamic drag thereby get competitive advantage. However, the hydrodynamic contribution of the swimsuits is not well studied and fully understood. The primary objective of this work is to the study aero/hydrodynamic behavior of a range of commercial swimsuits. Both aero/hydrodynamic and microscopic measurements were undertaken. The analyzed data indicate that the swimsuit surface structure has significant effect on aero/hydrodynamic properties especially on drag.

Swimsuits are the most revealing garment that American women wear publicly. Yet wearing them affects how women feel about their bodies and attractiveness. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from convenience samples of Florida women and analyzed in terms of five strata: Competitors (competitive swimmers, beauty-pageant contestants, swimsuit models); College students (Afro-Caribbean, Asian, Black/Afro-American, Hispanic, White); and Adult women (North Florida Black and White; South-Beach Hispanic, and pregnant, as well as older women (doing water aerobics). Anthropometric data (BMI, waist circumference, waist-hip ratios, and bust-waist ratios) were collected and related to Figure Rating Scales and body descriptors, preferred and actual body shapes and sizes, and swimwear types and usage by situations (one-piece, two-piece, bikini, and thong worn in the presence of family and friends or on the beach and in private). Results, matching the literature show participants: (1) overestimate their body size and shape discrepancy from cultural ideals; (2) are affected by the media-depicting “thin ideal. Details of swimwear usage show that for Black and some Hispanic women, constructions of attractiveness are changed to laud larger size to mediate body dissatisfaction and enhance swimsuit use. For Asian women, conservative values rather than body size affect swimsuit usage. But even competitors who enjoy the benefits of swimsuits, as well as women of all ages (body-dissatisfaction continues throughout the lifespan) and ethnic/racial groups, still express body dissatisfaction.

In this paper a research project for a mechanical test procedure will be presented to detect drag reducing effects of swimsuits. With a newly developed mechanical test design nine swimsuits by six different manufactures were investigated. The mechanical test stand was assembled in a swimming channel and consists of a frame work, a model of an athlete and the force measurement device. Drag force was measured parallel to the stream and recorded at six velocity levels. The collected data and statistics showed the validity of the presented test design.

The use of polyurethane swimsuits at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships resulted in world records being set for almost all swimming events. This paper explores the implications that the use of these performance-enhancing swimsuits had on fairness in relative and absolute outcomes in swimming. I claim that the use of ‘super swimsuits’ unfairly influenced relative outcomes within the competition because not all swimmers used, or had access to, the same types of swimsuit (some of which were clearly ‘faster’ than others). Furthermore, I claim that the use of performance-enhancing swimsuits by current competitors unfairly influences inter-temporal relative outcomes. It is evident that competitors and coaches in elite swimming place great importance on making inter-temporal comparisons on the basis of absolute outcomes in the sport (as measured by a swimmer's race time). A ban on the use of super swimsuits may be justified in order to preserve the fairness of such inter-temporal comparisons, and records set using performance-enhancing swimsuits at the 2009 World Championships should be demarcated from others.

Among the fitness and body shaping exercises of Chinese women, swimming has become an increasingly popular sporting activity. Swimsuits are fundamental to participation in this sport and paramount to achieving the wearers’ aim of participation. A survey of 3348 Chinese women showed that body fit is central to the purchase of a swimsuit, whether one piece or two piece, with the two-piece swimsuit proving the most popular in terms of comfort. This survey revealed that the comfort of a swimsuit is relative to the design variables of the swimsuit style, the material/body cover factor and, informed by the female form, body size and body shape. This is particularly pertinent in both the right and left anterior mammary regions and also the left lateral mammary region for the female wearer to stay comfortable during swimming when she moves in the water. This study investigated the factors that affect the comfort of women wearing swimsuits when they swim. The two-piece swimsuit was considered the most comfortable. It was also found that swimsuits negatively affect women’s chest area. These results present important considerations for swimsuit manufacturers.