Sleeveless wetsuit or full?

I went with the sleveless suit for two reasons.

1. I don't intend on doing any races in truly cold water; and

2. I like the full range of motion my arms have in the sleveless suit.

I know that others prefer the full suits. It is really a matter of your own preference.

Bill

I went back and forth on this question too, when I bought my wetsuit. I live in MN, and the water temps are still pretty chilly (60 or so?) during these spring months, but during the summer they are warmer, of course. So, I was torn. I ended up going with the sleeveless because of the range of motion issue, and because I am one of those people who naturally gets really, really warm/red-faced during a workout. Your own tendency to run hot or cold might factor in for you too. If you tend to run on the warm side, then a sleeveless would probably be fine as far as temperature goes. For buoyancy, I'm certainly no expert, but I'm not sure that the increased buoyancy from sleeves would make a ton of differnence from a sleeveless, but I could be totally wrong on that.

An alternative is to get to get a sleeveless wetsuit that offers the optional sleeves that can be worn with it, like this:
http://www.wetsuit.com/store/detail.cfm?product_id=340

Incidentally, I used my sleeveless wetsuit in open water for the first time last week, and I was totally comfortable; not cold at all. I also found it to be very buoyant, to the point that I almost felt like I was wearing a life jacket.

Kelly

Innnnnnteresting.

The range-of-motion doesn't seem to be an issue for me; I tried on both kinds of suit a couple of weeks ago and my range of motion seemed to be unrestricted in the fullsuit. But I was broiling. And Bill, that's a good point -- I get hot easily when I'm working out, so I probably don't need a fullsuit even in colder water. Thanks for the link, Kelly! That might take care of the issue altogether! I checked out ProMotion's website, and I can't quite tell if the tri sleeves are meant to be worn OVER a sleeveless suit or not (I'm envisioning a semi-infinite amount of friction) so I e-mailed their customer service and I have my fingers crossed.

Thank you both for the help!
Angela

ProMotion's tri-sleeves are intended to be worn UNDER a sleeveless suit.

I've used them for 2 races now, and I think they're great. If the water is colder than 70, I will wear the sleeves. If it's hotter, I'll go sleeveless. 2 suits for the price of one.

I have not noticed any loss in range-of-motion when wearing the sleeves.
Good luck!
-r

Oh, cool. Thanks for the info. Do you know whether the ProMotion sleeves work with other companies' sleeveless suits? I kind of wanted to buy an Orca suit, and I don't know if they're compatible.

Been there too...

Go with the full. I've been racing in CA for a year and currently wear a sleveless Orca Predator 2. I tried out a full suit and the "free range of motion" thing didn't ring true. When you are swimming you hardly know the difference. I've done ocean (cold) and lake (hot) races - I can't imagine that the wetsuit sleves really make much of a difference.

The full suit can provide almost twice the surface area on your arms. When plowing through the water, that means that each precious stroke will be more efficient. Plus, the additional "float" factor will make you more bouyant, which further increases your efficiency (less drag).

My next suit will definitely be a full.

Good luck!

-Adam

Edited by Eightman 2004-06-03 6:07 PM