Removing Body Hair: The Benefits for Cyclists

From Olympic ath­letes to ama­teurs there is a plethora of sports­men and women who remove body hair to enhance their per­for­mance. Cycling, swim­ming and div­ing are a few sports that use hair removal to cut down on wind and water resistance.

The Ben­e­fits

Aero­dy­namic

When com­pet­ing, any slight advan­tage you can get over your oppo­nent could help you place. The removal of body hair can shave frac­tions of a sec­ond off your time. This may not help you win a road cycling event but can be ben­e­fi­cial when track racing.

Hydro­dy­namic

The hydro­cyanic ben­e­fits could also cut time for triath­letes as there is less drag or resis­tance when swim­ming. This method is widely used by high level ath­letes from  Michael Phelps to Alessan­dro Fabian.

Wound Heal­ing

Abra­sions and road rash are very com­mon for cyclists who reg­u­larly com­pete or train. Falling of a bike at speed usu­ally means you will slide on impact. The fric­tion cre­ated rubs away lay­ers of your skin. These abra­sions are usu­ally referred to as road rash.
Many claim that remov­ing leg hair up to the short line actu­ally helps in recov­er­ing from road rash. Smooth skin reduces dam­age as hair can­not rip dur­ing impact cre­at­ing less tear­ing of the skin. It also makes it eas­ier to keep the area clean dur­ing the recov­ery process.

Apply­ing oils

In var­i­ous sports ath­letes use dif­fer­ent oils and oint­ments that they mas­sage into dif­fer­ent mus­cle groups. This helps to ease an exist­ing injury or sim­ply pre­vents new ones. Defor­est­ing  areas of the body can help with the appli­ca­tion of heat creams like Men­tho­la­tum and mois­turises to keep the skin supple.
Lasered, shaved, or waxed skin also means you do not gummed hair after apply­ing creams and oils making it eas­ier to wear tight fit­ting clothes.

Hair removal options

Shav­ing

Using a razor is a com­mon method peo­ple use to remove hair. This is the quick­est way to remove large amounts of hair. A prob­lem with shav­ing with razors is that the blade becomes dull mid shave leav­ing an irri­tant rash.

Wax­ing

Wax­ing is an excel­lent way to remove hair but it is noto­ri­ously painful and can be expen­sive to maintain.

Depila­tory cream

Depila­tory cream can cover large areas of skin quickly mak­ing it a pop­u­lar choice for peo­ple who find it hard to defor­est areas of the body that is hard to reach.

IPL Hair Removal

I hair removal is a fast and effec­tive way of remov­ing unwanted hair for long peri­ods of time or even permanently.