History of Tech Suits

A little history without going too far back. From about 1950 to 2000, swim suits all consisted of two things, nylon and lycra/polyester. The only difference in suits was the blend of nylon and lycra and the way it was stitched. Varying those two things impacted cost and durability (how long before the chlorine eats it away and how long before it stretches out). The stretching out was the big thing as it relates to speed, because the as the suit gets loose, it creates more drag with each tiny ripple it has in it. So for big meets, you would wear a new suit that was about a size down from your normal size. It would be very snug, for better or worse, and not be stretched out at all. For men, they were all speedo brief style. In the 90s, suit companies started doing a lot of research in the effects of drag and swim suits and things started to get crazy from there. In the 90s, there was the "paper suit". It was still a nylon and lycra blend, but was woven incredibly thin (like paper thin), so they would absorb less water and be more efficient. They lasted about 2 meets, fairly expensive and you had to treat them like they were made of glass. In 2000, before theOlympics, Speedo came out with the fastskin. It was woven with little tiny bumps so the water would channel through the bumps and not absorb into the suit. I believe it was modeled after shark skin and it made a huge difference. A lot of world records fell at the 2000 Olympics because of this suit. In 2008 (another Olympic year), suit designers put all of their research into one mega suit design. They added polyurethane to the fabric that added buoyancy, made them full body suits (torso down to ankles) which provided compression that allowed better blood and oxygen flow as well allowed the swimmer to hold better body position, and went from stitched seams to "welded" seams to reduce drag even more. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure just about every world record was crushed over the next two years with these suits. The sport responded by saying this was taking technology too far in the sport and banned the suits after 2009. The end of the super-suit era. Suit companies worked with the rules and kept some of the lessons from the super suits, mainly compression is good and welded seams have less drag. They also carry on some of the traits of the fastskin series regarding water resistance. These are the techsuits we have today, expensively made, compressing jammer-style suits that repel water and compress the core muscles for better blood flow.