1st wetsuit - some newbie questions

I don't have a tri wetsuit, but I'll try to help from a general wetsuit standpoint. If I'm wrong on something, someone please point it out...

1) If you can breathe, you are OK. Without bodyglide or a 'lube suit' (which you wouldn't wear for a tri), the suit may not get into proper position very easily. Once you get in the suit and get into some water, gently pull the neck of the suit open and let some water into the suit. The suit should 'find itself' pretty easily. I think that body glide would certainly help here.

2) Any openings in a wetsuit should be snug. There's a general misconception that a wetsuit keeps you warm by allowing your body to warm up a layer of water between your suit and your skin. That's half right. The important thing is to limit the flow of water through the suit. Loose opening and 'pockets' where the suit does not fit snugly against your body will act like a pump and constantly move water through the suit. That's bad. Your body ends up spend a lot of energy to heat the water that is constantly be 'changed over.'

3) Body glide. In general, you don't want to pull on a suit any farther away than 6 to 8 inches from where it's stuck.

4) Do you need to touch your toes while swimming? I would think that a tri wetsuit would offer plently of flexibility with regard to your arms and probably less with your legs.

I hope that helps...

-Frank

Thanks Scuba - very valuable info. As far as #4, I'm thinking more along the lines of bending over to set up transition area, picking up kids etc. (Tonight while trying on wetsuit, bent over to pick up crying little one who bonked)...I guess my question would better be phrased...

Will my wetsuit be able to withstand abnormal stretching in areas where you normally wouldn't stretch at? like my butt?

I found this website helpful when I got my first wetsuit.

http://www.bikesportmichigan.com/features/wetsuit.shtml

I had a similar question. Just got my new ironman instinct LJ last night and almost had a heart attack at how small it looked coming out of the box. After 10 minutes of careful pulling, I got it on and it actually felt OK, but I felt a bit of pulling at the neck which bugged me. My question is, when you get in the water with one of these, do they stretch out a bit like a regular wetsuit does?

It did become more comfy after getting wet. I haven't done any laps at a normal pace through...this makes me wonder how I'll be doing after 5-10 mins of hard swimming when the muscles in the chest, neck are a little more pumped up.

You won't feel a thing.   I bought my Ironman LJ back in July, but never got to use it till today.  I donned it for my lunchtime swim since Hurrican Ivan added about 8 inches of ice cold water to our pool.  Yeah, it felt snug, but its also compressing you and giving you a smaller profile in the water.  That is a good thing.  

My swim was amazing.  First of all, you feel like a cork in the water with the added bouyancy.   Secondly, it completely eliminates that shock of getting in the cold water.  Finally, you feel so streamlined.  You want that tightness just below the neck to keep it from interrupting the flow of water over your chest.  There's a lot of water that flows over that area when you are doing the crawl stroke and you want where the wetsuit meets the skin to remain as smooth as possible.

I have never swam (swum?) farther than 2500 yards (just this past Wednesday).  Today, I swam a PB of 2 miles (3600 yards).  I also swam with my best ever average lap time.  It was effortless and due in large part to how much easier it is to swim in a wetsuit.  From now on, I'll be hoping every event allows one!

Edited by Motivated 2004-09-17 1:43 PM