Olympic science: Re-engineering swimming styles

Now, new technology is starting to catch up with the needs of swimmers and their coaches, and may help to improve training regimens for the next generation of Olympians.

Every component of a race -- the start, the turns, the stroke -- can be analyzed separately. For swimmers of equal size and proportion, maximizing the production of thrust from the stroke determines much of the difference in speed.

Chennai Engineering Colleges

"What the coach really wants to know is how much thrust the swimmer is actually producing," said Timothy Wei, an engineering professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Engineering Graduation

Wei has been working on a system to take high-speed film of swimming athletes and track a point on their bodies. By measuring the swimmer's speed between each frame, Wei said he can estimate the swimmer's acceleration and how much thrust is produced throughout every motion.

The idea is to keep the system simple so coaches can obtain fast and accurate data. Currently the best way to measure a swimmer's thrust from millisecond to millisecond is to tether them to a force gauge and have them swim in place. The data from this is incomplete, because the swimmer really isn't swimming through the water. Wei's system lets athletes swim through the lane like they would during a competition. He hopes to try out his new technique on U.S. Olympians after they return from London.