Negative buoyancy help (Page 2)

You might want to check out that video. In the last run, the suit the competitive swimmer is so big he can barely lower his arms, let alone do a decent pull motion, and he STILL beats the guy who swims 1:30/100m. He works pretty darn hard to do it, though!

And as an aside, in endurance sports like distance swimming, biking, and running, twig-shaped appendages are often a HELP, not a handicap. Everyone likes to point at the little girls and say "we men are so much stronger in the arms so it can't POSSIBLY be power!", but they're first of all not assuming we're testing them int the swim pull motion, in which those girls who practice their rears off pull shockingly hard, and as well, you don't need muscle bulk to go fast in endurance sports. Prime examples are the gazelle-like legs of Kenyan runners, or the svelte frames of pretty much all pro cyclists except short-track sprinters. What I'm saying is that you can't assume these strong swimmer girls have 'weak arms that produce no power' - in fact, all their fast swimming pretty much prove that they're plenty power in the swim motion, and they can pull those paddles with high turnover to prove it. 

You might want to check out that video. In the last run, the suit the competitive swimmer is so big he can barely lower his arms, let alone do a decent pull motion, and he STILL beats the guy who swims 1:30/100m. He works pretty darn hard to do it, though!

And as an aside, in endurance sports like distance swimming, biking, and running, twig-shaped appendages are often a HELP, not a handicap. Everyone likes to point at the little girls and say "we men are so much stronger in the arms so it can't POSSIBLY be power!", but they're first of all not assuming we're testing them int the swim pull motion, in which those girls who practice their rears off pull shockingly hard, and as well, you don't need muscle bulk to go fast in endurance sports. Prime examples are the gazelle-like legs of Kenyan runners, or the svelte frames of pretty much all pro cyclists except short-track sprinters. What I'm saying is that you can't assume these strong swimmer girls have 'weak arms that produce no power' - in fact, all their fast swimming pretty much prove that they're plenty power in the swim motion, and they can pull those paddles with high turnover to prove it. 

How many 8 year olds do you have swimming 100m in under 1:20, and for distance? 

If all of your 8 year old kids can do it, and this isn't a team that preselects from the fastest kids from the region, I'm convinced! 

 I did see that at USA Swimming, a 8-year old girl swimming a 1:20 for 100m meets the A-standard for competitive swimming. That's pretty good - for an 17 year old boy/man, you'd need a 1:01 for the 100 to make the same A standard.

I'm also curious as to why if it's all smooth technique, that these kids can also power through the fly really fast - if there's a stroke that takes a ton of energy, it's the fly! If anything, that also shows they've got some serious power - you can't fake/finesse a fast fly stroke - you have to be pretty strong to pull it off, let alone do it for distance. 

Yaz......honestly, you don't know anything about swimming fast. (hint: it's NOT like you see in most AG triathlons)    And you REALLY don't know anything about butterfly.     The butterfly swimmers would absolutely kill you with nothing more than underwater dolphin kicking in a 100 yard race - you do whatever stroke you like.  I'm sorry, it's still mostly great technique and timing.