The question that we get asked the most, the question that every triathlete or open water swimmer has asked themselves, the simple but highly complex question.
What wetsuit is right for me?
A swimming wetsuit is designed to aid you in your open water swims, it is designed to give you added buoyancy, reduced friction, improved body position, increased distance per stroke and it is designed to keep you warm. When deciding what wetsuit is right for you, it is important to keep in mind what the wetsuit is designed for, reading the in-depth descriptions and specifications can hold valuable information about the design of the wetsuit. This aims to empower you to identify if the wetsuit design will meet your requirements.
Keeping this in mind we attempt to answer this difficult question. The three areas of focus for us when answering this question are; Swim Length, Personal Goals and Water Temperature.
Swim Length
The swim length is an important factor because this broadly answers a lot of athletes follow up question, 'how much difference will the wetsuit make.' Wetsuits will certainly make you swim faster, but by how much is almost impossible to precisely answer. That is because there are so many other variables in open water swimming, you could write a blog about it! However, we can confidently say that the longer the swim, the greater the time saved with a wetsuit or higher quality wetsuit. While this is partially a simple answer, with more time in the water equating to more time to be saved, there is also the added benefit of buoyancy reducing fatigue. For example, an athlete competing in an Ironman event is swimming 3.8km, toward the end of the swim as they may slow as a result of muscular fatigue. However, fatigue also causes technique break down, which greatly reduces the speed the athlete can swim at. So at the end of a long swim like this, an athlete with a better wetsuit, who has more buoyancy, has the best chance of holding their best swimming technique and will also be benefiting from the extra buoyancy throughout the first parts of the swim that will reduce the fatigue build up.
The difference between athletes with basic and elite level wetsuits is best thought of as an exponentially increasing function with the longer swims having the greatest proportion difference as well as the greatest raw time difference. The contrast to this is a beginner triathlon where athletes may be completing much shorter swim legs 200-400m long. In shorter swims such as these we are unlikely to see contrasting differences between wetsuits as the time spent in the water may only be in the range of 5 to 10 minutes. Thus highlighting how the distance of your race and your own personal speed are important considerations, as the time spent swimming will define the amount of difference between an RT, a Silver or a Gold wetsuit (using our range as an example).
Personal Goals
While we can tell you what wetsuit will make you faster and that over a longer swim, the gold wetsuit will be the fastest suit on the market. We can't tell you that you need to be faster to be happier. Our goal as a brand is to cater for everyone, and that means catering for all types of personal goals. Whether your giving up everything in pursuit of winning a world title or wanting to enjoy your weekend swims with the help of some extra warmth and buoyancy, our goal is to have a wetsuit for you.
Personal ambitions can often give you that final answer when you are stuck deciding between two suits. You may find multiple wetsuits tick all your other criteria, they will both keep you warm, they both have highly flexible arms, they will both make you swim faster and the finally question may be, 'Will I be disappointed if I miss my goal by the smallest of margins?' If the answer is Yes, then you are going to feel more content at the end of your race if you gave yourself the best possible chance and got the best wetsuit.
It is also certainly worth noting that taking into account personal goals is also often done in conjunction with considering prices. Prices for wetsuits are (in our case) transparent, you are paying for what you get. Wetsuits are made of Neoprene, any extremely advanced material that is expensive. A thicker, more buoyant suit is made of more neoprene than a thinner suit, and a top of the range wetsuits (such as our Gold) includes modern ultra flexible neoprene of a higher grade, which is much more expensive than traditional neoprene. Therefore, the wetsuit price point is often used by athletes to make the final decision and understand to what extent they want to achieve their goals.
Water Temperature
An often over looked variable when deciding what wetsuit is right for someone, is the temperature of the water they are swimming in. This is a critical variable that is relevant to all levels of swimmers with all types of goals. Swimming cold, or attempting to complete any intense exercise when cold is bad for performance, bad for your body and an all round bad experience.
Insulation is the reason why wetsuits keep you warmer. Therefore a wetsuit constructed with thicker neoprene is going to provide your body with more insulation, keeping your bodies natural heat trapped inside. For a comparison a wetsuit which is 2mm thick through the body / core is not going to provided you with great insulation, where as a wetsuit like our Silver, which is 5mm thick through the body, is going to provide great insulation, keeping you warm in colder waters and warmer for longer periods.
Surface area coverage also plays a major role in thermo regulation. A wetsuit that covers more of you body is going to be providing insulation to a greater amount of your body keeping you significantly warmer. This is obvious in the example that a sleeveless wetsuit will not keep you very warm because your arms and shoulders are exposed to the cold ocean water.
What wetsuit suits what temperature of water will vary on the person wearing the wetsuit, how comfortable they are with the cold waters and how long they are going to be in it for. A rough guide would be that the warmest swimming wetsuits such as our Silver can be used to swim in waters down to 10oc, while the thinner wetsuits such as the RT would be suited to 18 to 20oc water temperatures. Remembering that this is based upon a person who is swimming and producing their own body heat. If you were stationary in cold waters, the insulation would not be as effective.
The Answer:
There is often multiple wetsuits that may suit you, and only you will be able to decide. We are certainly here to help and provided information such as this blog, but everybody is unique and that is why we make different types of swimming wetsuits!