- Should you race the swim leg of a triathlon in a wet suit,
or in just your tri suit?
You might think this is an obvious one,
you're gonna say wet suit all the way.
- Well how much difference does a wet suit actually make?
And how much, if at all, is the advantage
of wearing a wet suit outweigh the time you lose
changing from it?
- Well, we're going to do our own investigation
comparing both the tri suit and the wet suit
to hopefully help you decide what is best
to wear at your next race.
(light music)
- Firstly, let's run over a few rules.
Because the decision to go wet suit or non wet suit,
is not aways yours.
If the water's warm enough, it'll be deemed
a non wetsuit swim like in places like Kona.
Then if the water is really cold,
it will become wetsuit legal and you'll probably
want to wear a wetsuit.
- But other events can actually vary,
so it's always checking the rules beforehand.
And just to note, sometimes they'll allow
age groupers to wear a wetsuit in warmer water
than they will the pros.
So if it's going to be borderline on that water
temperature, just make sure you come prepared
for both situations.
For age group IM racing, wetsuits are mandatory
for water temperatures below 16.0 Centigree,
or 60.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
They can also be worn in water temperatures up to
and including 24.5 degree Centigree,
or 76.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Then for age group IT races,
wet suits are mandatory at below 16 degree Celsius,
or 60.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
And forbidden at and above 22 degrees Celsius,
or 71.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
For swims up to 1500 meters.
Then for swims above 1500 meters,
they're forbidden above 24.5 degrees Celsius,
or 76.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
- It's that middle ground when it's tough to decide,
swim as being labeled as wet suit optional,
and the waters of less temperature.
So, what should you do?
- Well, let's look at the pros of wearing a wetsuit.
One of the main ones is the added bouyancy
of wearing a wetsuit, so that helps to elevate
you in the water, and in turn, that actually
reduces your drag through the water.
Which is appreciated more by some swimmers
than others, and can depend a little
bit on your swim ability.
And, with the added buoyancy, it can actually
change buoyancy of different parts of your body.
So if you are someone that drags your legs
through the water, you can get a suit that has
more buoyancy in the legs, which then lift the legs.
Help you get a more neutral position when you're swimming.
It's also an extra layer, which is going to keep
you warmer so if you're doing a cold water swim,
that's gonna keep your body warmer,
and you're muscles functioning better.
And it is also an extra layer of protection
from all those swimmers that fling
their arms and legs around, so you get
through the swim safely.
- Okay, now it's time to look at the pros
of wearing just a tri suit.
To start with, your shoulders are more free,
even if you're wearing a sleeve tri suit,
some people do find that a wetsuit can
be a bit restrictive around the neck,
and the shoulder area.
And then, there's the obvious one.
The amount of time you're going to save in T1,
don't need to worry about wrapping, wasting energy and time
trying to frantically get your wetsuit off.
You can fly straight through there.
And if the water temperature is more warm,
so warm that it's almost on the cut off,
you might find that wearing a wetsuit,
you can start to overheat when you're swimming hard.
- Now before we get into the actual physical comparison
of wetsuit versus non wetsuit.
It is worth pointing out that Heather, and myself
both come from swimming backgrounds,
so the benefit we receive from wearing a wetsuit
possibly a little less than from someone
that finds swimming that we get disciplined.
And on that note, it is worth considering
the type of wetsuit that you choose to swim in.
So if you are a weaker swimmer, you might want
a wetsuit with different buoyancy at different
parts in the suit.
But we will be covering that in more detail
in another video soon.
- Okay, it's time for Mark and I to try out
the varying situations, including a swim
and the transition.
So we're going to both do a 400 meter swim,
in a non wetsuit, and then a wetsuit
including a mock of T1 and their times.
- Yeah, I mean, 400 is pretty good standard distance
when comparing this sort of thing.
And obviously, we'd love to go to different distances,
some longer distances, but I think if we start
doing that many max efforts in one day,
our results going to be all over the place.
So, we'll do the 400 meter and after it,
we'll take our times from that
and then we'll work out our predicted times
for some of the longer distances,
and the differences between the two.
Should we get on with this?
- I think so. - Let's go.
Okay, you ready? - Yeah.
- All right, first run, non wetsuit.
- All right, 400 here we go.
- Just go.
(light music)
well done, how was it?
- Oh you know, you left me for dead.
How was yours?
- It was good, I think I went out a little bit too hard.
- You were just gone.
But now you're gonna have to start pacing the same
on the next one.
- Yeah, I think I'll do that,
I'm pretty bad at pacing.
- Okay.
- Well yeah, now, on to wetsuit.
(light music)
- Okay, as you can see, we've got our wetsuits on.
- So buoyant. - I know,
it's time to do it again, Mark.
Same pace?
- Fingers crossed.
- Two, one, let's go.
(light music)
♪ I'm waiting, I'm waiting for you ♪
- Well, Mark, you looked like you were absolutely
flying on that one, how was that?
- I'm glad it's done.
Because I've been built to pick up times
from most.
Yeah, I just felt so much more buoyant.
Literally, looking at my times I came in,
I'm fairly sure it's quite a bit quicker.
How about yourself?
- I was a little bit quicker,
but the effort of getting out,
and getting a wetsuit off was,
I need practice on that.
But I think we do need to go and have a look
at the actual numbers.
- I'm shattered, I want some food.
So we can sit down, crunch some numbers.
Had some time to grab some food, relax,
and crunch our numbers.
So should we go straight in with
our results, our times?
- Yeah, let's have a look at the first was non wetsuit.
- Yeah, okay, so I was 4:49 against the wall
in the pool, and climbed out, took me a few seconds
to hit the fall for our T1.
So 4:52 was my overall time.
- Okay, well, my overall was a 5:59,
once I got out and hit the wall.
- Okay, moment of truth then, our wetsuit time.
So I went 4:36 in the wetsuit.
And then obviously, we then had to take our wetsuits off
so that took me 12 seconds, so I had an overall
time of 4:48.
- Okay, so how much difference is that then?
- So that works out, about four seconds overall
time difference. - Quicker, with your wetsuit?
- Yes, quicker.
- Okay, well I was quicker swimming with my wetsuit,
so I was at 5:54 when I got out of the water.
But by the time I actually hit the pool side wall,
having taken my wetsuit off, I was up to 6:10.
So I was actually 11 seconds slower, the overall time.
- Okay, well we did, it fairness.
We did do the wetsuit run second because
in my eyes, I thought the wetsuit run was going
to be quicker, so if we did that first,
I think all of our viewers would be questioning
why we did it in that order.
- Yeah.
- We're favoring wetsuit, but, I think I've shown
for myself, that the wetsuit was quicker
and it was on the second run.
Mostly yours.
- Yeah and I think you're more used
to swimming in a wetsuit than I am as well.
So there could be a difference with that,
and my stroke is still more of a pool stroke,
and maybe I need to look at that a little bit.
- Well that is a really valid point.
I think for a lot of people, wetsuits
are quite unusual and it does take a lot
of getting used to.
Some people do feel that they have to offer
sleeveless wetsuit, so if you aren't doing wetsuit
swims, or you've got anything planned,
I really recommend getting your wetsuit
as soon as you can really.
Whether it's just for the odd swim
in a swimming pool, or you go in open water.
Do try it out, because there is a different
level of buoyancy which can be a little bit restrictive
in the arms.
- Well we said we were gonna have a look at
how this would actually correlate to a longer distance.
I've seen 400 as the shorter end of the spectrum
when it comes to triathlon swims.
So, we've done as a rough calculation basically,
just multiplying the pace we were swimming at then,
and imagining we were maintaining the same pace
for 1500, I think I could.
But you went out very hard.
Anyway, so with that, my time difference
would actually end up being 20 seconds difference.
Which means I would be 20 seconds quicker
on the wet suit than I would on the non wetsuit.
So it's just proving how it becomes more selective,
what happened with your?
- Well mine was quite substantial,
so my non wetsuit was 18:04, my non wetsuit was 17:15.
So you're talking 49 seconds there overall,
in terms of the time.
Yeah, so quite considerable.
- Seeing the gates any time taking your wetsuit off.
- Absolutely, yeah well, this has been really
interesting study.
And we have actually not discussed the swim scale
option as well.
- Yeah, exactly, and that's another factor
for another time that I am in.
For example, I predominately swam in a swim scale,
and I like that feeling, everything's a bit tighter
than a tri suit that's been designed to be more
warn under your wetsuit.
- Well, yeah, watch this Facebook for
a video on swim skins the near future.
And if you'd like to see that,
you can click on the globe and subscribe to GTN.
If you like to see our top five tips for T1,
just click down here.
- And if you want some tips on how to get out of your
wetsuit, we made a video for that, just here.