Most triathletes rave about wetsuits because, well, wetsuits
make them swim fast and look hot. I, as I have learned through trying numerous
wetsuits, am not like most triathletes. Wetsuits don’t make me fast and hot.
They make me slow and dumpy. And that, I think, is completely unfair. So, I set
out on a mission to find a wetsuit that fits me comfortably and makes me fast
(a flattering fit would be a bonus).
I’ve read tons of reviews of wetsuits. They’re great, but
they’re all written by men. Here’s the problem: I’m a woman. A suit that fits a
guy pretty well will probably fit me a little… differently.
A few things you should know about me: I’m 5’11” (with most
of my height in my torso) and I come from a competitive swimming background. I
may not be shaped like the “typical” woman, but I’m fairly confident that I’m
not the only female triathlete who struggles to find a fast and comfortable
wetsuit.
And so I began my quest for the perfect wetsuit. Of course,
I can only hope to find the perfect wetsuit for me, but I hope my findings help
other women find the perfect wetsuit for them.
The Protocol:
Part I: Pool
- Perform eight trials
- Each trial will consist of 4 x 100 yards, descending at 1:30
- The first trial will be naked (i.e. no wetsuit), the second trial will be in my current wetsuit and the following six trials will be in test wetsuits
- The pool testing process will be spread over a period of weeks
Part II: Open Water
- Swim a buoyed course in open water, once in each of the test wetsuits
Of course, as every scientist knows, experimental design is
rarely perfect on the first (or second or third) try so we made some
modifications along the way.
Wetsuits are clearly not designed for pool swimming, so most
of the suits took on a lot of water during flipturns or when I was streamlining
off the wall. To account for the increasingly heavy suit, I had to take extra
time after each 100 to dump the excess water. As a result, we scratched the
1:30 interval for all wetsuit tests (we used it for the wetsuit-less test), but
continued to descend the four 100s.
Meanwhile, open water testing proved more difficult than we expected. We finally settled on a course from a buoy to the boat launch at Crystal Lake in Gray, ME. We performed all of the open water swims in a single day when the water was calm and there was a slight headwind. I swam each trial at a moderate effort and wore a Garmin 910XT to collect data. GPS data estimated the distance of each swim at approximately 130 yards.
Our data include “stroke efficiency” which is defined by
Garmin as the time it takes to swim 25 yards + the number of strokes it takes
to cover that distance. A lower number indicates a higher efficiency.
The Results
Baseline: 4 x 100 descend @ 1:30 naked (i.e. no wetsuit)
1:22
1:21
1:17
1:15
Xterra – Women’s
Large (Not a test wetsuit)
This is my old wetsuit, the suit I wore throughout 2011. It
is too big/too small and makes me feel like a pregnant gray whale (large,
bloated and bumpy*), but before I started this review, it was the best I had
found to date. As I mentioned above, I’m just under 6-feet tall and have an
extremely long torso. The Xterra was more flexible than any suit I tried
before, which meant that it stretched over my torso instead of crushing my
shoulders. In doing so, it didn’t even touch my back (allowing plenty of extra
space between my back and the back of the wetsuit), BUT it didn’t hurt my
shoulders. I thought the absence of shoulder pain was a good thing, until my
back started hurting from the excessive arching.
The extra space between the wetsuit and my back is like a
bucket, collecting all the water that pours in through the wrists and the neck.
Of course, after the water collects in the back bucket, it sloshes throughout
the rest of the suit, making me feel swollen and heavy—again, like a pregnant
gray whale. And another thing: This suit is also extremely buoyant, forcing me
to expend a lot of extra (mostly fruitless) effort to push my chest down in an
attempt to bring my legs and butt to the surface of the water.
Bottom Line: This suit and I don’t get along, but Xterra has
improved their sizing options since I purchased my suit. It’s possible that I
would get along just fine with a newer, better-fitting model.
*The bumpiness is a result of the plethora of repairs. I
suspect that this suit was a lemon. By the third wear, it looked like piranhas
had attacked it.
1:15
1:14
I was worried that I might do some serious damage to my
lower back so I only completed two 100s in this suit and vowed to never ever
wear it again. In other words, this suit was not part of open water testing.
Orca Alpha – Women’s
Large
Let me start by being brutally honest: This suit was my
favorite. So, if you think I’m biased, you’re right. My two favorite features
are the flexibility and the lack of buoyancy (except in the butt, which is
where I need it). I am a swimmer, but I’m also a sinker. I’ve been swimming as
a sinker for years, which means I’ve adapted my stroke to my sinkable nature. So,
when a wetsuit makes my arms, chest and legs buoyant I have a really hard time
finding my stroke. But, when a suit makes my butt buoyant, well, that’s a
treat. The buoyancy in the butt, but lack of buoyancy in the chest in the Orca
Alpha helped me get into proper body position. (I find that buoyancy in the
chest tends to cancel out buoyancy in the butt, leaving me either with the same
body position I have without a wetsuit or much worse off.) I have one complaint
about this suit: Water came in through the wrists and ended up causing me to
carry quite a bit of water inside the suit. On each 100 I swam in the pool,
waterlogging caused the second 50 to be significantly slower than the first. I
was only able to try one size of this suit. It’s possible that a women’s medium
would have solved this problem.
Pool:
1:15
1:15
1:12
1:10
Open water:
1:50
36 spm
40 stroke efficiency
2XU Velocity –Women’s
Medium
I was nervous about the fit of the 2XU suits. I’d seen a lot
of athletes wearing 2XU suits, but they were all tiny women. I am not a tiny
woman. I was sure the suits would be too small, but I was wrong. The suits were
in fact too big. Actually, they fit well in my torso, but they were too big in
the shoulders and upper arms, which was odd. I think this is the first time an
article of clothing has ever been too large in the shoulders. That extra space
in the shoulders and upper arms provided a perfect place for water to collect.
And the water went in, stayed in and made me feel heavy.
This suit has nifty channels on the chest. My understanding
is that these channels are speed channels. I didn’t notice much of a zooming
effect when I was swimming in open water or in the pool, except when I was approaching the wall in the pool. At first this last
minute zoomage annoyed me because, by unexpectedly zooming into the wall, I was
forced to do some cramped flip turns. Of course, A.) One shouldn’t judge a
wetsuit on its flip-turn performance and B.) I got used to it and kind of
enjoyed riding the wave into my turn. I’m not sure how this would carry over to
open water, however. My guess is that the channels maximized the effect of the
backsplash from the wall. Perhaps this means that you could deal better with a
current or waves in open water. Finally, this suit is very buoyant throughout,
which is not ideal for me, but may make some people very happy.
Pool:
1:16
1:16
1:13
1:12
Open water:
1:55
36 spm
38.8 stroke efficiency
2XU T:3 –Women’s
Medium
The fit on the T:3 was the same as that of the Velocity, which was discussed at length
above. This suit kept me warm and was fairly comfortable, but it wasn’t fast. I
felt like I was wearing leggings and a fitted t-shirt. Also, there was an oily
coating on the neoprene that didn’t go away, even after two pool swims and two
open water swims.
Note: The time for the fourth 100 in this suit was comparable
to those in the blueseventy and both Huub suits, but the swim was completely
different. The fast 100s in the Helix, Archimedes and Aura were feel-good fast.
This one was not. It was the miserable result of my stubborn competitiveness.
In other words, someone was swimming in the lane next to me and I refused to
let that someone beat me.
Pool:
1:17
1:15
1:14
1:09
Open water:
1:55
35 spm
43 stroke efficiency
Huub Archimedes 4:4
–Unisex Medium
Huub is a new company, but they’re not at all new to
wetsuits—speed or swimming. The company has blueseventy roots, connections to
the gurus of Swim Smooth and is named after Dutch movement scientist Huub
Tousaint. (Huub, by the way, rhymes with dude.) The Archimedes 4:4 has all
sorts of nifty features. The X-O Skeleton is designed to improve body alignment
while the arm crossover alignment feature prevents arm crossover. The bicep
release is designed to enable a high elbow catch and the calf release improves
blood circulation in the lower leg.
The Archimedes fit me well, but there was a little extra
room in my back because the torso wasn’t quite long enough. This suit was by
far the hardest to get on (especially when wet or sweaty), but the easiest to
get off once unzipped. The zipper is supposed to be secure (with triple Velcro)
and quick release. The triple Velcro was indeed secure—so secure that I never
succeeded in undoing it myself. This was my only complaint about this suit
(other than wishing it had another centimeter or so of torso length). I just
wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing this suit for a triathlon because there’s a
very real possibility I wouldn’t be able to get it off. Overall, this suit is
comfortable and fast. With a couple tiny tweaks it would be my absolute
favorite.
Pool:
1:16
1:12
1:12
1:08
Open Water:
1:53
35 spm
36.1 Stroke Efficiency
Huub Aura 3:3
–Women’s Medium
This suit was too small/too big for me (made for a shorter,
larger woman) and yet it was surprisingly comfortable. In fact, it’s the most
comfortable wetsuit I’ve ever experienced. The inside of the suit is weirdly
soft and cozy and, this is something I’ve never considered before, but if I
were to snuggle up in a wetsuit, this is the one I’d choose. The suit was
comfortable and fast, but because of the sizing it collected water.
Pool:
1:13
1:14
1:12
1:08
Open Water:
1:51
37 spm
40.8 stroke efficiency
Blueseventy Helix
–Women’s Medium
I’ve had blueseventy wetsuits in the past. I’ve wanted to
like them. I’ve wanted to love them, but the torso has been too short, crushing
my shoulders. I was optimistic that things might be different with the high-end
suit. They were different… a little bit. The torso was not long enough for me,
which created a gap in the back, but it didn’t cause shoulder pain. The sleeves
on the Helix were nice and tight so no water came in through the wrists. (Water
did, however, come in through the neck, creating the usual waterlogging
effect.)
More about those nice tight sleeves: The underside of the
sleeves is made of NeroTX fabric (like a rashguard). The point of this feature
is to allow the swimmer to feel the water better. I’m a big fan of this
concept, but in reality, it was cold. This might not be much of an issue if
you’re swimming in fairly warm waters or if you only wear this suit when you’re
racing at balls-to-the-wall speeds. But if you’re training in the ocean in
Maine, you may want to put some serious thought into your need for warmth. This
all sounds fairly negative, but it’s not. This suit is fast and would be
comfortable if the torso were just a little bit longer.
One more (totally random) positive feature I discovered
while coaching in open water: Swimming backstroke in the Helix is quite
comfortable. Backstroke-ability probably isn’t a deal-maker or -breaker for a
normal athlete and it’s not something I tested in every suit, but it’s a nice
feature for those of us who coach while swimming.
Pool:
1:16
1:13
1:13
1:09
Open Water:
1:51
36 spm
42.6 stroke efficiency
