beginner swimmer - short or long sleeve suit?

Marvarnett - 2009-06-10 11:12 AM Long sleeve 100% of the time.  The #1 purpose of a wetsuit (for tri's) is buoyancy.  A full will give you more buoyancy and a sleeveless.  And I have found that a vast majority of the people that complain about tight shoulders on their wetssuits is because they are donning them improperly.

So, buy the long sleeve.

randym95 - 2009-06-10 10:46 AM So, I understand the bouyancy thing.  What about the heat thing?  I don't own one yet and will need to buy one before my last Tri this season.  I live in Southern Texas, so the temperatures for legal wetsuit are usually just barely legal.  I've heard those things can get mighty warm.  Thoughts?

Sorry, if I'm hijacking.

RAndy

famelec - 2009-06-10 12:19 PM I like sleeveless for South Texas.  I like feeling the water with my arms and knowing that my range of motion is not being restricted (yeah, I know, long sleeved wetsuits aren't supposed to affect this....).  The water is pretty warm around here too, so I've never felt cold for not having sleeves.

Brian

Synon - 2009-06-10 12:56 PM I think I need help understanding this... a friend lent me two wetsuits, one sleeveless and one with sleeves. The sleeves don't affect my range of motion, I can still put my arms straight above my head, but it takes much more effort to do so. Wetsuit fabric seems to be very flexible so I don't see how it could ever affect your range of motion, but don't you have to expend more energy to 'fight' the fabric to get your heads above your head? The wetsuit was designed for diving, not triathletes, so maybe that's why. It just seems that spending more energy to get your arms to a certain position is a much larger issue than range of motion, is there something I'm not understanding?

Synon - 2009-06-10 12:56 PM I think I need help understanding this... a friend lent me two wetsuits, one sleeveless and one with sleeves. The sleeves don't affect my range of motion, I can still put my arms straight above my head, but it takes much more effort to do so. Wetsuit fabric seems to be very flexible so I don't see how it could ever affect your range of motion, but don't you have to expend more energy to 'fight' the fabric to get your heads above your head? The wetsuit was designed for diving, not triathletes, so maybe that's why. It just seems that spending more energy to get your arms to a certain position is a much larger issue than range of motion, is there something I'm not understanding?

tjfry - 2009-06-10 2:31 PM

Swim specific wetsuits have very thin material around the shoulders to reduce the issue you are referring to. There still might be a little extra energy to get your arms above your head when you are standing on the ground, but once you are swimming the density of the water pushing on your glide make it pretty much a non issue. I think the benefit of the bouyancy far outweight the overheating/ range of motion.