How to Design a Swimsuit

In the Beijing games, 98 percent of the medals were won by swimmers wearing Speedo's full-body LZR suit. New rules permit only “jammers," suits from the kneecap to navel for men, and from the knee to shoulder for women. They also may not have zips or any other fastening devices — a ban apparently in response to the wetsuit-like suits companies began designing after 2008. They had to come up with something entirely new:

At Aqualab, researchers took four years and spent 55,000 man-hours to produce what Speedo calls the Fastskin 3 system. The internal team of 19 supplemented by outside experts talked to hydrodynamic experts, aircraft engineers and nano textile producers. They called on experts in kinesiology, biomechanics, fluid dynamics and even a sports psychologist, who suggested a blue-gray tinge on goggle lenses to instill a sense of calm and focus. They tried the “Six Thinking Hats” method of brainstorming, a green hat for creative ways to attack a problem, a black one to look at the feasibility of those ideas. They “reverse brainstormed,” picturing how to make a swimmer go as slow as possible with oversized goggles and a suit compressing the body so parts stuck out, creating drag. The crazier the idea,the better.

What they eventually came up with has been described as "Spanx on steroids," and compresses the body more than three times as much as the banned predecessor.