What's up, motivators Taren here?
If you are a triathlete, thinking about getting into the sport
and fretting about all of the money that you have to spend on all of the gear
between bikes and swim gear and run gear and then wetsuits.
Today we are going to talk about everything that a beginner triathlete
needs to know about buying or using their first wetsuit.
Why would you do it?
How much should you spend?
What should you look for?
What we're going to say here is going
to be designed specifically for the beginner triathlete mine.
So it's going to save you money getting
you absolutely everything you need, getting you really close
to that absolutely perfect wetsuit while not breaking the bank.
My name is Terryn Gazelle.
In my twentys I was overweight.
Unfulfilled and couldn't even run to the end of the block.
Over the following years, I found endurance sports, lost £65,
won age groups, race world Championships, growth records and trained and learned
from some of the best athletes and coaches in the world.
You too, can use endurance sports
to change your life and accomplish your fitness goals.
You just need a system, a system that's meant for us amateurs
who want to be our best while feeling our strongest and healthiest.
My company, Motive offers that system,
and I want to share some of the tips from us today.
So let's dive right into it and get
into why would you need a Triathlon wetsuit over some other wetsuit?
Maybe a scuba diving wetsuit or a general
swim wetsuit or a surfing wetsuit or anything like that?
Well, there are some specific design elements to Triathlon wetsuits that are
going to be absolutely ideal for the scenario of doing a Triathlon.
Those other wetsuits aren't really designed for a Triathlon.
Namely, the Triathlon wetsuit is going to be a lot tighter.
That makes a big difference because it's not going to hold as much water,
so it's not going to create as much drag in the water.
It's going to actually narrow your entire profile because it's going to squeeze
in just having a teeny little layer of water between your body and the wetsuit.
This is key because you don't want to be
dragging your way and pushing your way through the water.
Whereas most of those other wetsuits are
going to carry a whole lot of water here, they're going to carry a whole lot
of water in the torso and it's going to actually slow you down.
Also, a Triathlon wetsuit is going to be a lot more flexible.
These are designed to be flexible, particularly in the shoulders,
because you have to be very nimble, you have to be very agile.
Triathlon wetsuit is also easier to remove
on the wrist cuffs and the ankle cup, so you can get out of transition quickly,
kick this off and save a lot of time and also not worry about ripping the wetsuit.
Finally, the Triathlon wetsuit is designed to swim horizontally.
And we're going to talk about how it's designed to do so and how it's different.
But in regular swimming and in scuba diving, you're upright a lot.
You're kind of horizontal, whereas a Triathlon wetsuit is designed
specifically to have you being perfectly horizontal.
We want to get those legs nice and horizontal close to the surface
of the water, letting you swim as fast and as comfortably as possible.
So Triathlon wetsuit obviously designed specifically for Triathlon.
It's going to be very noticeable that it's going to be a significant improvement.
What about a wetsuit versus nonwettsuit just going into a race otherwise?
Well, if you're a beginner triathlete,
I would very, very much encourage you to get into a Triathlon wetsuit
for a number of reasons that are specific to the beginner athlete.
First is safety.
Triathlon wetsuit is going to be very buoyant.
And if you're a new triathlete, the hardest part and most intimidating
part of a Triathlon is going to be the swim.
A lot of people freak out in their first several races, totally normal.
What you have in a wetsuit that is nice
and buoyant is the ability to just lie on your back and safely calm down,
allowing yourself to just get through that race with some safety.
If you don't have that buoyancy,
you essentially are maybe going to be out stuck in the middle of a Lake or an ocean,
freaking out, constantly fighting that sinking feeling.
A wetsuit is also going to be a lot warmer than a non wetsuit.
Going out in no wetsuit is really, really cold.
And that cold feeling that comes onto your
body that can make you really panic and get you very anxious and tight.
And A, you're not going to swim very well
because you're really tight and B, you might have that panic that freak out
because you're a fair bit warmer and you're more controlled.
The panic is less likely to set in with a wetsuit on, and it's also just faster.
Most beginner triathletes who don't come
from a swim background, unless you are a former elite level
swimmer, you are going to be anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds faster per 100
meters in a wetsuit because the suit is designed to keep you more horizontal.
I've been in a number of races that were
maybe going to be nonwet suit, maybe wetsuit.
And every time that the announcer came on the PA system and said, all right,
it's going to be a wetsuit day, there was either a cheer or if they said,
hey, there's no wetsuits today, you'd hear a groan.
Next thing is the question of rent versus buy or borrow versus buy,
I would very strongly encourage you to buy your first Triathlon wetsuit.
You can get a great wetsuit like this,
which I'll explain what it is in a minute for as little as $275.
And if you don't end up continuing
on with Triathlon and you want to get rid of the wetsuit.
Quite often you can sell it for $200 to $250.
The very first wetsuit I bought was about $200, and I think I sold it for $180
a year later, which was way less than renting a wetsuit even just one time.
So let's say you are prepared to buy that wetsuit.
What do you look for?
You want as flexible a set of panels with the neoprene as possible.
Yamamoto rubber is the gold standard
of Triathlon wetsuits because it's the most flexible for the thickness.
Where you want the most flexibility is in the shoulders.
So typically a very good Triathlon wetsuit is going to have anywhere from one
to three millimeter thick neoprene in the shoulders and the arms,
and then it's going to have thicker five millimeter neoprene in the legs.
What that does is because the neoprene is
thicker in the legs and it's thinner in the upper body.
It does that thing where there's more
buoyancy in the legs, getting your legs closer to the surface,
getting you a lot more horizontal and a lot faster.
Further to that, you want a tight fit.
Cheap wetsuits have typically sacrificed that tight fit because they want to make
sure that the athlete could get into the wetsuit.
But they saved money on going with a less
expensive rubber than that Yamamoto rubber.
Going with Yamamoto rubber, you get all of that nice flexibility,
and it allows the wetsuit manufacturer to create a tighter fit so that your body
ends up filling up more of the wetsuit once you get into it.
The cheaper wetsuits have historically
allowed people to get into the wetsuit, which didn't have that super flexible
rubber, by just making it really roomy and creating a whole lot of drag because
you're carrying a whole lot more water in between your body and the wetsuit.
And finally, in a perfect world,
you have arm cuffs and leg cuffs that are designed to snap off really quickly,
so they're nice and tight so you're not entering into the water,
creating a whole lot of drag and just scooping in water by it being very loose.
So it's nice and tight, but it's designed with a flexible wrist
and ankle cuff so it can snap off really quickly.
Now, all of those requirements
of the flexibility of the different panels of the more buoyant legs and the less
buoyant torso to get you nice and horizontal.
The flexible wrist and ankle cuffs.
You can get some of them in the less expensive $200 to $300 wetsuits.
But the reason that they were inexpensive is because those entry level wetsuits,
they cut a lot of corners, so you had to give up something.
Of course, Roka is a sponsor. I love them.
But for years, Roka didn't have an entrylevel wetsuit
that I could recommend for the total beginners.
Last year they came out
with the Roca Maverick, just their entry level $275 wetsuit.
I think hands down, it is the best entry level wetsuit out
there because it ticks all of those boxes of what you're looking for.
And I've tried a bunch of the other ones.
I've done swim tests with them.
Nothing is even close to this.
Yes, they are a sponsor,
but I actually said that this entry level wetsuit for $275 is as revolutionary
in the wetsuit market as their original $1000 wetsuit.
That's how good the entry level version is.
While we're talking about Roka being a sponsor, if you go to roka.com,
you can win a pair of shades up until the middle of May 2022.
You can look as good as this, or this or this while you're cycling or
this while you're running link is in the description below to win your
choice of any pair of Roka sunglasses and get a 20% discount.
If you're watching this after the middle of May 2022, which is totally fine,
you can still go to Roka comAREN and get 20% off at any time.
That site is always just there to get a discount on Roka product.
Finally, if you purchase your own wetsuit, the work is not done.
You want to make sure that it is prepared for your race.
That means you have to get it wet.
When you first get a wetsuit, it lacks a fair bit of flexibility.
One of the reasons is that it needs to get wet.
So if you aren't able to even get into a Lake whatsoever, get the wetsuit on.
When it's dry, go hop in the shower. Move around a lot.
That's going to make it a lot more flexible before race day.
Further to that, in a perfect world, you can get into your wetsuit
and into open water about six to eight times before your race.
The reason for that is even
with the flexible shoulders of a very nice wetsuit, takes a little bit of work to get
used to having that little bit of restriction around the shoulders.
Again, with a better design wetsuit
with thinner, nice, flexible shoulder material.
This is less of a concern,
but you do want to get used to having that sensation of the tightness in your
chest, which might create a panic feeling the first few times that you use it.
And the more that you go out and use it, get the suit wet.
Turn the arms over.
The less that panic response is going to be there, the more flexible the suit is
going to be in, the more comfortable you're going to be in it.
So ideally, use the wetsuit six to eight times.
Get yourself a wetsuit that checks all
of the boxes and you are going to be much safer, much more comfortable,
much less chance of a freak out, which is one of the biggest things that we
need to eliminate for beginner triathletes.
The more you know. Thank you for watching Motivators.
If you're looking for a training plan
that incorporates these methods that is as good as a one on one coach but as
inexpensive as doing it yourself, check out our motive training app
that covers triathlons, running races, do Athlons swim runs and cycling events.
The link in the description below where
you can check out your customized training plan for free.
Also if you'd rather listen to these tips,
we also publish these videos in podcast format on the Terrain's Motive method
podcast so you can check that out and if you don't want to do either of those
things that you found this video helpful hit us up with a virtual high five
by smashing the like button below later motivators.