Sports Wear

I don't have the same aversion to sports wear worn outside the gym as the Friday Fashionista does. I do find it disturbing when non-sports wear is worn in the gym, like sandals, for example. And the one 50s-something guy at my gym with the Friar Tuck hair obviously dyed red who wears cargo shorts to work out in, adding to his overall creepiness.

But my bigger problem is with performance-enhancing clothes.

Speedo just introduced a new body suit that compresses the muscles and is enabling pro swimmers to set new records. Not because of their training, strength, technique or ability. Because they wear a suit. Michael Phelps (pictured, sans suit) set a new butterfly record wearing it.

In powerlifting the same practice exists. Powerlifters who wear a special shirt that compresses their muscles (so much so that it forces their arms to extend in front of them like Frankenstein when they walk) and gives them a 30 percent increase in strength. The LTR resisted this, competing "raw" (i.e., sans special shirt) but finally gave in because he is in a decided minority and thus at a major competitive disadvantage.

In ancient Greece the athletes competed naked. There's something to be said for the athletes competing unaided by technology, relying on their personal performance. Technology-enhanced sports loses something -- and that something is more than just a chance to ogle beefcake. It's the loss of true human competition. "Swifter, Higher, Stronger" and now "better dressed." I don't like it.