Mental Aspects and Preparation: August 2007 Archives

A few years back, I got hooked on the notion of shaving my legs for triathlon. I remember hearing about it and the supposed benefits of shaving my legs. Some of these were:

1. Biking - if you get in a crash and you need to put a bandage on, pulling it off is less painful due to having no hair.
2. Biking - aerodynamics is improved by not having all those pesky hairs on your legs to create minor turbulence in the air as the air flows past your legs.
3. Swimming - less resistance through the water with all those hairs on your body creating drag.
4. General - It looks better than having hairy legs, and more consistent with the look of a healthy, motivated triathlete/cyclist.

One morning in 2003, I decided to shave my legs in the shower. It was a messy affair. Fumbling about with shaving cream and a women's razor, I proceeded to take clumps of hairs off my legs and watch them slowly go down the drain (I hoped that my shower drain wouldn't get clogged!!). I remember looking at myself in the mirror and thinking that it looked very weird to not have hair on my legs any more and that it felt almost...more naked.

The day after, I jumped in the water for a swim and I recall having this funny sensation of "feeling" the water more. I felt faster in the water, and unfortunately had no conclusive proof that I was faster than with hair on my legs. But I did feel better when I swam.

As for cycling, I somehow felt more like a real cyclist, and it's funny that I noticed guys who didn't shave their legs more out there on their bikes and thought they looked very...well...non-cyclist.

Then in the July-August 2007 issue of USMS Swimmer magazine, there was an article called "The Naked Truth About Shaving Down" where they give some scientific basis for why shaving is good for swimming. They claim that it helps swimming by reducing the amount of stimuli that your nervous system is receiving from the environment and that your motor output is improved when you remove that stimuli through shaving. So I guess this means that you control your muscles better through your perception of what is required to be slippery through the water and your ability to feel the water when you stroke. While I was definitely more sensitized to the water environment post-shaving, I cannot verify if my motor output is improved simply through shaving. And because I shave every week, my body has since gotten used to environment with my no-hair-on-my-legs level of sensitivity and I don't perceive any additional sensitivity due to shaving now.

In the sidebar, there is reference to a study that showed that blood lactate accumulation was reduced significantly. If I were to read this small snippet correctly, does this mean that I am being more relaxed and efficient through the water simply because of the positive feelings that one gets while swimming with shaved legs (and/or body)?

Who knows. I try lots of things and don't have conclusive evidence that everything I do improves my performance, such as taking certain supplements or the research that shows that having protein in your sports drink is better than not. Some of it is just insurance. That which does not hurt me might just help me.

I was walking through a supermarket last week and saw a boxed set of all the Discovery Channel Shark Week series. Being a lover of these types of documentaries, I bought one thinking it would be cool to learn more about sharks.

Last week, I went to get my haircut and while waiting for it, I was watching this big plasma TV which had the Discovery Channel on and apparently was rolling through all the Shark Week episodes. This particular episode showed some recreated shark attacks. There were repeated scenes of tourists jumping into the water while somewhere offshore of a tropical island. They frolick in the water, and then somebody gets a tug on their leg and down they go! The water turns red, lots of thrashing about, and then they pull the survivor out of the water usually with a missing limb.

First, I told the person who was cutting my hair that I didn't know if it would be good for business if they kept showing all this bloody water caused by big fish biting limbs off people because there were kids sitting around waiting for haircuts too.

Second, I realized that while it would have been cool to watch this DVD set when I got home, I realized that I was better off not watching it.

Triathletes are always swimming some kind of course in the ocean. We try to cross from Alcatraz to San Francisco, we swim from one end of Waikiki Beach to the other, or we're just doing 2.4 miles off the beach as the first leg of Ironman. In some sense, we're not worrying about the OTHER occupants of the sea; we're just trying to get to the finish line. But sometimes, when you're swimming, you either can see for a long ways around you since the water is crystal clear, or the water is just this dark, murky mystery.

In either case, I remember my mind sometimes wandering off and imagining seeing some dark form swimming around and then getting closer and closer, maybe seeing the triangular fin break water close by. It doesn't matter if it's clear or murky. When it's clear, you start wondering when the form is going to show up. When it's murky, you start dreading that godawful tug on your leg when something takes a bite of you and starts dragging you down.

But once you do a couple of races, you tend to get over it and focus only on the race. Otherwise you'll go crazy. It does take some time to get used to though. Wild animals in the ocean are no fun. I've been accosted by a monk seal while snorkeling at Captain Cook's bay in the Big Island of Hawaii and gotten scratched and nipped by a 800 lbs, 6 foot long huge wild animal! That took me a while to get over it but I still won't go to Aquatic Park in San Francisco, after hearing that the seals there are getting more aggressive around swimmers.

So I could watch Shark Week but it would probably just make my anxiety level go sky high for ocean swimming....just what I don't need!

Alas, my Shark Week DVD box set will stay unopened and I will hopefully remain blissfully ignorant of those toothy predators that inhabit most oceans, right where we triathletes like to swim and compete...